


Words: Illumination

by bekeleven



Series: Words that we Couldn't Say [6]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Drama, F/F, Gen, Speech Disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-07-24 19:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 23,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7520998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bekeleven/pseuds/bekeleven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remnant lies broken. A pair of young women come to understand that not all victories can be achieved without sacrifice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Brand New Day

Neo cut through a convenience store on her way to vinewall. It wasn't well secured; guarding every building in no-man's land was beyond the limits of the existing military. More shelves were empty than yesterday. Someone had snuck in under cover of night and grabbed what they could. Understandable, nobody else was using it. And these days, people were hoarding whatever they could get. Some seemed to think that if the thread holding Mistral above the abyss were severed, a few cans of soup would save them.

Neo, by contrast, _wasn't_ stupid. She left out the back door and flashed her badge to the soldiers manning the gate beyond. _Gate_ was too a grandiose term. More accurately, it was an archway Mistral's border had grown around, filled in and repurposed. The officer on duty cranked it open. He know Neo by sight, anyway. She composed her face and stepped through, and the soldiers shut her out.

The fields unsettled Neo. The crops were three feet taller than they'd been yesterday, and the early morning sun cast long shadows, where it wasn't blocked by abandoned buildings. It was sometimes hard to see past the crepuscular rays to the ground below, plants shooting through cracks in the pavement. Every step could... _there._ Ten feet straight ahead. A body, a young woman in a black hoodie. If Neo was lucky, dead.

Neo drew her umbrella and advanced. Playing dead was more likely. Blighting almost never killed. It must have been recent, if she hadn't risen to attempt one of the two purposes.

At three steps away, two beetles burst out from under the body.

Neo swept her umbrella into a guard and popped it open. It was sluggish, nothing like Iris had been. But it conducted aura well enough to bat the grimm away. One hit a trellis and fell with a cracked carapace. The other was flung into a shaft of sunlight, where it burst into flames.

 _If only the blighted were as easy to deal with._ But no. That would deny Ruby her purpose. Neo danced closer to the body and poked it with the umbrella. Still no movement. She flipped it over. No more grimm.

Neo knelt down and checked the body. Her pulse was stable. She didn't see an entry wound, but that didn't mean much. Those could be anywhere, and they healed fast. Neo dragged the woman over to the trellis and cuffed her to it. She could free herself, especially if she were blighted. But she would make sound doing it.

Neo walked the rows, ears open. In ten minutes, she'd cleared the field, well, the streets-turned-field, as best as she was able. No more beetles today. She brought out her scroll and dialed in the all-clear. The workers would begin the harvest at six thirty, leaving the day's sunlight for next batch. Mistral had traded its miles upon miles of terraced farmland for small plots outside the vinewall. The Green Goddess had her limits. She couldn't expand the border _and_ feed the millions packing downtown Mistral's skyscrapers to bursting.

Neo walked back through the rows to find her captive was no longer alone. A tall man in a dark, tattered shirt with a drawstring bag around his back was pulling on her handcuffs. He noticed Neo just after she saw him, growled, and charged.

One of the two purposes. It was good when the world made sense. Neo hit him across the face with her umbrella, sending him down to the pavement, where he bounced and lay still. She crouched and rolled him over. His eyes tracked her.

Neo only had one pair of handcuffs. She hit the man again and his eyes closed. No shouting. Some of them were like that.

ʀᴏᴜɴᴅs ᴅᴏɴᴇ. ᴛᴡᴏ ʙʟɪɢʜᴛᴇᴅ. Neo pressed send.

ᴄᴀɴ sᴘᴀʀᴇ ᴄᴀʀ, Director Gulistan responded. ɴᴏᴛ ɢᴜᴀʀᴅs. ᴇsᴄᴏʀᴛ ʏᴏᴜʀsᴇʟғ. ᴛʜᴇɴ ᴅᴀʏ ᴏғғ. How generous of the huntress to offer Neo an afternoon free of unpaid, life-risking labor. Neo stowed her scroll and got out her key to unhook the cuffs from the trellis.

 _I could use a visit to the sanitarium anyway._ Neo sighed as the cuffs clicked back into place.

Which was when she felt the sting on the back of her neck.

_GIVE UP GIVE UP GIVE UP GIVE UP GIVE UP GIVE UP_

Daggers pierced through Neo's neck, brain and soul. She screamed and raked her fingers across the pain. Something came away with her hand, besides the blood and tracks of skin.

_GIVE UP GIVE UP GIVE UP give up_

The voice stopped. The pain did not. Neo reached up to the back of her neck and dug. She pulled out the remaining piece of grimm, dissolving, leaving the blood to drip down onto her hands.

Neo's aura stitched the wound. The agony may have lessened. There was still so much of it. Neo threw up. Mostly onto the ground. A little onto the man's legs.

The pain lessened to a dull throb. Bleeding with aura up made Neo dizzy. Nothing worked how it was supposed to any more. Even her own body's defenses.

That had been far too close. The grimm had waited for a distraction.

No, even large grim took time to learn basic knowledge. It must have been a coincidence. It must have just noticed her. Or been fleeing from a creeping shaft of sunlight. Or something else.

Neo slowed her breathing. Aura low, under a quarter, but stable. She threw the bodies over her shoulders, the man's shoes still scraping the ground, and staggered back to the gate. Waving to the camera was difficult with bodies over both shoulders, but possible. The door cranked open.

"There's a car for you, Miss Neopolitan." The officer on the other side pointed. Like she couldn't see the only working vehicle on the block. She hoisted her burdens over to it, where one of the soldiers slid open a door. A green minivan. The government was no longer limited to official resources. Neo threw the pair across the middle seats and circled the car to the passenger's seat.

"Where to, Ma'am?" asked the driver. A military cadet wearing a too-big hat.

sᴀɴɪᴛᴀʀɪᴜᴍ, Neo typed. He looked at the scroll, looked at her, bit his lip, and nodded before taking off. Probably hadn't seen many blighted yet. At least not enough to see handcuffs this close to the vinewall and make a conclusion.

The ride was only thirty five minutes, despite the density of the city. The woman regained consciousness in the middle, requiring Neo to take her to the back seat. Unlike the man, she was a shouter. She shouted at him for getting her into this mess, at Neo for keeping her in the city, and at the cadet for bringing her where she knew she was going. Why had she jumped the border in the first place? Did she think she'd beat the odds? That she'd be the one to slip past the grimm unmolested? Stupid. Neo sat on her and pinned her down. One hand held the woman's wrists and the other went over her mouth. There weren't many paddy wagons in the city. Gulistan probably realized Neo didn't need one. Perceptive bosses caused Neo trouble.

Then they were at the Sanitarium, and the cadet got out to explain Neo to the guards. That was nice of him. She would have to let go of her charge to use her scroll, and to make matters worse, the man was stirring. Less than a minute later, a pair of guards threw open the van doors and dragged the two into the building. A third man followed, holding a gag.

Neo sighed. ᴛʜᴀɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ, she told the cadet, leaving the car. Hopefully he wouldn't get into trouble for the vomit she'd left smeared on the seat.

Neo's ID was enough to get her into the building herself. The main floor was for convalescence, but she turned right and headed for the stairs. Individual rooms were on the second floor. Most were empty. One was not. The floor guard saw her and unlocked the door. The prisoner, the patient, wasn't a flight risk.

The room had a bed, a dresser, and a table with two chairs. He sat at one, his shock of orange hair turning white at the roots. Soon enough he'd look like her. Neo smiled. He smiled back, lines of black etching their way up his cheeks.

"Good morning, Mint Chocolate." Roman's face tightened into a grimace, just for a second, before it was Roman's again. "Having a good day?"

Neo took a breath. For a moment, she held it.

"Hello, Roman."


	2. My Eyes

The hope of humanity slept in until seven. Nobody woke her up.

Not that she had any staff on-hand, with a suitemate demanding privacy. So she woke up, rubbed her eyes, ate a bowl of cereal, and showered. Then came the clothing, and the hood, and the scythe. They'd become a weird sort of symbol. Ruby wasn't sure how she felt about it. But she knew they helped others. The public. The survivors. Many looked to her. She did her best.

It was about time. She scribbled a goodbye note and pinned the paper to the fridge before taking the elevator down. The sergeant waved her to the remaining limo; her decoy had apparently already left. Ruby didn't like putting others in danger on her behalf, but the man insisted. They all insisted. They all did so much for her.

It was a short ride to the sanitarium's back entrance. Ruby entered the building alone, her handlers having been finally convinced that _she_ wanted some privacy as well. The hallways were brightly lit, hostile, uninviting. Too sterile to tolerate life. Save one young short-haired woman leaning against a wall, absently twirling an umbrella.

Ruby smiled. "Hey, you."

Neo walked up to her, grabbed Ruby's head, and pulled her down into a kiss. Yes, the world needed the argent. But Neo, Neo needed Ruby Rose. And Ruby was happy to return the favor.

Two or three eons later, Neo broke the kiss. "Hey, you," she replied.

"Do you want to come with?" asked Ruby.

"Of course." Ruby tried not to take Neo for granted, but so far, the woman had followed Ruby everywhere. And was going to continue.

"Anything to say?" asked Ruby. Neo's last chance to speak before convalescence.

The woman glanced at the ceiling. "Roman's worse." Then her gaze settled on Ruby's face. "I love you."

"I love you too." Ruby took Neo's hand and led the way through the halls, until they reached the armed guards, who saluted her and opened the door. Ruby saluted back with her free hand and stepped through, Neo following in her wake. In her right hand, Ruby unfurled Crescent.

The blighted gave the usual responses. Male, female, young, old. Many shouted and strained against the straps holding them to their beds. Others hurled insults, threats, and vulgarities. Some cried. Others begged. It would be too much if Ruby spent any time processing it. Instead, she walked to the center of the room, all of her focused on her left hand, and the fingers hers intertwined. Neo was usually busy, off helping somewhere else, the condition of her pardon. Ruby knew she didn't _need_ the woman. But having her, it was still a treasure.

At the center of the room, Ruby closed her eyes and focused. She focused on dad, back at home, waiting on communication from Mistral. She focused on Weiss, wielding power selflessly, and giving it up selflessly as well. She focused on Blake, far from home, tormented by powers she didn't understand, wrapping her adopted city in a cocoon of safety. She focused on Yang, mutilated, altered, still working as an advocate for her teammates, tireless in her pursuit of a lasting solution. Still protecting her baby sister.

Ruby focused on Jaune, not quite part of the system, yet doing what he could to support it. She focused on Nubu, mourning her loss, persevering on instead of seeking comfort. She focused on Ren, placing the needs of others first.

Ruby focused on Gulistan and Amblik, once enemies, now unified, protecting the people. Ruby focused on the guards around her, with no superpowers, no grand dreams, and no ambitions beyond making it home to their families. She focused on the blighted, who deep in their hearts, must have known that they needed her.

Ruby focused on the woman holding her hand, behind her and a little to the left. The woman who, Ruby knew, was adorably biting her lip as she stared at the back of Ruby's head with that gaze of complete confidence. That gaze Ruby could never let down.

Ruby's eyes began to burn.

It wasn't painful, like heat. It wasn't _powerful_ or _liberating_ , words Yang had used to describe her old semblance. It was peace. It was calm. It was the assurance everything would work out in the end.

Ruby opened her eyes again and shared that feeling with the world. A wave of silver spread from her, crashing against the walls, flowing through the beds and the figures strapped to them. It passed through bodies, pulling out a lattice of black lines, framing their centers and sketching up their limbs. Once outside the confines of their aura, the darkness disintegrated like ash.

Then the wave was done, and the room was silent.

In time they would come back to themselves. Most had been blighted for under a day. They were still mostly whole. They would thank, and fawn, and cry. Some would be ashamed. A few would shut down, unable to process what they'd experienced. Occasionally, one would ask how Ruby was holding up.

Ruby didn't need that attention today. She left the silent room the same way she came, giving the guards at the door a thumbs up. Then she let Neo lead her upstairs, even though she knew the way. Most time with Neo was quiet, even now. One had to learn to appreciate that about her. To understand what was meant by silence.

The floor guard curtsied and handed Ruby her keyring, so she unlocked Roman's room and went inside.

Neo may have been right, but if Roman was worse, it wasn't visible to Ruby's eyes. "Hello, Red. What are you doing here?" Still the same Torchwick, his hair a bit whiter. He shot a glare at Neo. "I didn't ask for you to come."

Neo didn't defend herself. Even with two people she could talk to, both at once was sometimes too much. Ruby expressed her instead. "Neo says you're bad. Says you might need healing."

"Blake spent four minutes and forty two seconds in a room with me yesterday," Roman answered. "Nearly five minutes. So close to five minutes, just thinking with me. The leaps and bounds our little kitty's made."

"Is it time?" asked Ruby. She held up a hand, coalescing power, wrapping it in aura, sealing it tight. A ball of silver poured out onto her palm. Roman watched it with a hunger.

Then he shook his head. "It hasn't even been a year yet. Barely a month." He strained, black lines moving under his skin. "Now leave. You know my purpose."

Some blighted, when free, fled north. Roman's type stayed in the city. They damaged infrastructure, sabotaged the military, or tried to kill Ruby.

Or sat in a chair in front of her, refusing.

Ruby extinguished her light. "I've seen Blake get stronger, too. She'll need that strength when more blighted come." Neo nodded along with her words. "Thank you for what you're doing."

"Go!" the man ordered, pointing at the door. Neo flinched back. Ruby nodded and opened the door, allowing Neo to scamper through. Then Ruby returned the keyring and the women walked down the stairs together.

"I'm sorry I can't help him," Ruby told Neo.

Neo got out her scroll. Maybe she was too shaken to speak. ʜᴇ ɪs sᴇʟғʟᴇss.

"Will he last?" asked Ruby. "Until we ask again?"

ɪᴛ's ɴᴏᴛ ʜɪs ғᴀᴛᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴏʀʀɪᴇs ᴍᴇ.

Ruby sighed. "This is it. This was the last day."

Whatever had stolen Neo's voice was gone. "Worry about us," Neo told her. "Mistral won't fall before we get back. So long as we get back."

"I wish I could tell them why," Ruby whispered. "I wish I could let them know. See them understand."

"They'll know," Neo answered. "When it happens, they'll all know."

And then she smiled.


	3. Everyone's a Hero

Sun desired peace.

Peace in the world. Peace in his family. Peace at his school. They vied for priority in his brain, along with other goals. Having fun. Cute girls. One cute girl in particular. Trying not to let his imagination run away with itself. Wondering what that girl was seeing inside of his head as it very graphically did so.

"You're failing weapons maintenance?" asked Blake. She knew the answer. It was a necessary step to guide the conversation where it needed to go. Most people frowned upon being told what they would decide and kicked out.

"I, uh, yeah." _Relax, Sun. I had to get used to those almost instantly._ "Professor Nova doesn't like me very much." A true statement, just as true as his knowledge that he was failing because he built a weapon more complicated than he could fix.

"Stay in school, Sun."

Desire. Intimacy. Adventure. Agency. But not power in its other forms, which was nice. "Why can't I help you here?"

"I didn't quit school because I wanted to. My school was destroyed." Not that Blake had been receiving unsatisfactory marks in anything at the time. "And I can't afford to enroll in Haven, what with spending four hours a day growing crops and another two maintaining the vinewall. My predecessor literally worked herself to death." Not literally. But it made a much more convenient story. And it wasn't like Shell had been on the road to recovery. Yang...

Yang was fuzzy, at the edge of Blake's range. She was too busy to focus on her crime, but her mind remained unsettled. Blake was distracting herself again. "If Mistral needs you," she continued, "if Remnant needs you, it will need you at your best. Keep learning."

"Yeah, well, I'm not asking you about what Mistral needs," Sun pressed. "What about what you need?" What about what I need, he wondered.

"I don't need anything you can provide." Yang got excited seeing the name on the screen. "Now stay quiet, I'm getting a call." She pressed a button on her desk phone. "Hello?"

Sun looked, and felt, hurt. That was all right. Blake was relearning how to say no. It would get easier in time, she hoped.

The voice on the other end was less hurt than angry. "Miss Belladonna, I don't know how things worked in the _white fang_ ," the man spit out the name like an insult, "but the Mistral Council does not shuffle authority around quite so lightly. As council chairman, I have signed paperwork contesting your demand for channel control when"

"Gotta run, Rob." It was much easier to insult people over the phone. Worlds easier, when their pain and negativity weren't shared. And Yang's burst of anxiety could only mean one thing. "Have to prepare for uptime. And it's Hunt Commander Belladonna."

"Hold on, you can't" _Click._

"In my defense," Blake told Sun, "he does tend to drone on. And we _are_ actually ready for uptime. Could you grab that camera in the corner?"

"Grab your..." Blake was already pointing to the corner of her office. Sun looked over and got up.

Even before maidenhood Blake had been speeding up, taking control; she simply wanted to be _done_ with things like conversations as soon as she started them. Now she moved through conversations too quickly for others to process. She'd realized it more afterwards, of course. Nobody had ever said anything to her. She hadn't realized the scope.

"Place it in the middle there, and frame me. No, one foot back. Power button. Other side. Good. Thank you. Stay out of frame, please." The red light blinked on. "Yang, get closer," Blake said into the camera.

Yang pushed her chair a few feet around her desk, solidly into Blake's range. "Perfect." Blake yanked her bow's knot and let it fall onto her desk. Probably Sun's remote desire. "Ready when you are."

Yang was getting more and more nervous. Blake felt her press the button, and she was live.

"Hello, Remnant," Blake spoke. "My name is Blake Belladonna, Hunt Commander of Mistral. I've overseen the repair of our CCT since it was damaged by Cinder Fall and other allies of the grimm. I am here to give knowledge and warning. Some of this you will already know." Yang's eyes scanned the words, and Blake's mouth recited them. Blake couldn't trick her brain into remembering things it actively recalled as though it knew them, so retention was off the table. She would have to watch a recording later and see what she said.

"The grimm's progenitors have created a new breed and released them into the world from a location in the unsettled lands north of mistral. They are small, they can fly, and they can penetrate aura. If they embed themselves into a person, they can take control. Such people will be made to commit acts of violence and sabotage. There is no cure Mistral can offer you. The grimm die in direct sunlight. Placing the affected individuals in sunlight appears to weaken or slow the control.

"We are on our back feet. Humanity has few weapons that can stand up to this assault." Blake had worked with Yang on how to hide specifics from the blighted watching. "Please, spend what resources you can protecting your people.

"Keep fighting. Mistral is with you. We are not defeated." Yang, reading the end of the speech, cut the feed. Blake let out a long sigh.

Sun was still staring at her. Blake wanted to ask how she performed, but she could already see what he thought. The answer, apparently, involved Sun himself and various graphic activities. Blake wanted to blame him, but Yang was still in range, and her impressions of Blake _also_ involved herself and graphic activities. At least Blake didn't give into _every_ remote desire.

Instead, Blake dug through Yang's mind for her contacts. "To help, call Jaune Arc," she told the hunter. "Here's his number. Tell him when you're not busy with weapon maintenance." She wrote it down and handed it over.

"I feel like you're blowing me off."

"I'm sorry." Blake meant it. But she didn't have time for people. Didn't like interacting with people. She got enough shame from being near them, why had she guilted herself into seeing him after a text exchange? "We all have our responsibilities."

"looks to me like that speech wasn't your job. You did it anyway, because you wanted to."

Blake got up, walked around her desk, then past Sun to the door.

"You're right." Blake opened the door for him. "I did."


	4. Can't Say What I Mean

Nubu cracked open the door and entered the atrium. Lie Ren, the traitor, followed her in.

"Wait here," she suggested. "I will find them." They were expected. Nubu was acting like the lack of reception was expected too. She glided up the stairs and left useless Ren to sit on one of the ornate carved benches, as his abilities warranted.

He hadn't realized this much space still existed in Mistral, inside the vinewall at least. With so many millions in each square mile, the city felt full to bursting. But even after the government reapportioning, money still mattered. It was what untrustworthy Ren and beautiful Nubukha were counting on. Nubukha. Nubu.

Damn.

"Come upstairs, Master Ren." Nubu's light, melodic voice drifted down the stairs. Using formal language meant she was cautious about being overheard. Not that she respected him. No. She _did_ respect him. She _did_ trust him. It was sometimes hard to remember. He started up the stairs. There was only one path.

There was a single, short hallway upstairs. Perhaps the apartment wasn't quite as huge as it had seemed. Stupid Ren tailed Nubu into a large bedroom, where her parents waited, sitting on a loveseat in front of a table. They had a disheveled look to them, like most these days, but their clothing was as upscale as the apartment. The mother looked curious, the father stern.

Nubu's father looked at Ren. "You need something from me."

Ren took a deep breath. He was too slow to recall the correct phrasings. Too inarticulate to move the man. The best he could hope for was trite in a way that reminded his audience of other speakers, competent ones. Ones that could inspire. "Mister Nikos, humanity needs you."

"My family is strained to breaking, and you've attacked me with my own daughter, brought here to tear down what peace we have left." His eyes narrowed. "All of this, for my money."

"Pyrrha's money," whispered Nubu.

Both adults moved their gaze from unimportant Ren to the girl. Her mother opened her mouth to speak.

"It's Pyrrha's money," Nubu repeated, louder. "Most of it. And we don't need most. Only ten thousand."

"Only ten thousand," repeated the father. " _Only_."

"Yes, only," Nubu agreed. She seemed to be picking up steam. Doing what Ren couldn't. "It's half what you offered for strangers to kidnap me. Master Ren brought me home." A triumphant smile flashed across her mouth. "Pay him."

He stood and shoved the table aside, closing the gap to his daughter in one stride. Then he slapped her across the cheek. Or would've, if Ren hadn't kicked him into the wall.

Or Ren would've, if Nubu hadn't punched him in the jaw first.

Ren wanted to be disappointed that he failed, but he was far too busy swooning. He settled for self-debasing admiration of the girl. The woman. That no-nonsense punch... It was _just_ what Nora would do, excepting a laugh and some hollering.

Ren cursed his disloyalty. Was his heart not enough? Would he steal Nora's personality from her too, leaving her with nothing? After all she'd done? All he'd pledged?

Her father stumbled back into his seat, while her mother leapt from hers. "Nub!" She shouted. "That is completely unacceptable!"

"I have as much a right to it as you. Her team has as much a right. _Our_ team." Ren stepped closer as Nubu spoke. Was presenting a unified front trite? Probably. It might hurt her case to be associated with him. Too late now. "If you don't want to go broke, either humanity wins this war and reconquers the estates, or I get famous. They're both long shots, but neither is happening unfunded."

"Neither is happening," agreed her father, rubbing his chin. "Here is what will happen. I will give you eight thousand and you will visit in two weeks, _alone,_ and make this up to me."

They only needed five. Asking for ten... had it been Ren's idea? "Thank you, Father," Nubu answered. "Please fill my account by tonight. Goodbye." She curtsied, turned around, and strode from the room. Ren, the laggard, jogged behind her. He was the same height, he shouldn't need to do that.

She kept the pace up until she left the penthouse unit entirely. Then she crumpled into a wall and stood leaning against it. Ren saw tears on her face.

"I am sorry for your father," Ren said, one of his standard useless statements of the obvious.

"It's fine." She smiled through her tears. "I meant what I said. Pyrrha is gone. I'm the Nikos scion. I need to believe it, in here." Instead of her breastplate, she touched Ren's shirt, in the center of his chest.

"I believe you are capable of amazing things," Ren told her. Certainly more amazing than those around her.

"I also believe she would want me to move on." Nubu looked up from her finger on Ren's chest to his face. Her eyes were the most beautiful things Ren had ever seen. "And be happy."

Ren couldn't respond.

"They both would," she continued.

"Thank you," Ren forced out through a tight throat. His mind did its best to believe her. And he hoped a distant hope his heart would soon follow suit.

Ideally, before she wised up and found somebody better.


	5. Lifeforms

It was hard to believe that the CCT was up, maybe even up to stay. Thirteen hours and counting, and Weiss's scroll was still silent. Only calls from Colonel Amblik, Regional Director Vuk, Sinnika, and a few merchants - all local. It was easy to believe that Atlas couldn't communicate when it was taking over half a day to hear from father. Undoubtedly he'd heard of her odyssey advocating for the company, quitting, and then quietly rejoining. It wasn't behavior she expected to make sense from the outside. With more foresight... but some things can't be predicted. Ruby Rose foremost among them.

The buzzing grew again. Weiss dropped to her knees and placed three glyphs above her, each overlapping the others and cutting into the ground. The swarm appeared seconds later, ghostly in the shattered moonlight. They flowed through the air as a mass, heading straight for Weiss's pyramid of light.

Then the grimm hit. There weren't many, a few hundred, and most swerved to avoid the glyphs. She absorbed the momentums of the others, who either bounced away to rejoin the flock or cracked their carapaces and fell, smoking, to the ground. The swarm itself split into two, the grimm passing to the right of her heading straight towards inner city while the grimm to her left peeled off to head back through the outerlands. They turned a corner one block away and left Weiss's sight. Their actions were maddeningly inconclusive. Even with all of Mistral's data, Weiss couldn't predict the appearance or movement of the beetles.

The swarm heading for the inner city, perhaps one hundred beetles, buzzed happily along for two blocks until they neared the vinewall, which unknit itself and shot vines out like whips. Looking closely, Weiss could see the wall reforming itself, distorting in other places, to move a second layer in behind the active vines. The grimm were lashed from the air by the dozens, their bodies striking the pavement in overlapping snaps that blended together into white noise. The beetles kept flying higher. Weiss followed them with her eyes.

The Argent and her girl crested the vinewall, emitting a faint silver glow in the night. Even from here, Weiss could tell Neo was enjoying every moment in Ruby's arms. The huntress floated gently down, the last surviving beetles flying into her and evaporating as they touched her silver aura, leaving no trace. Of _course_ Ruby would suggest meeting in the wilds. For her, it just meant privacy. She was _still_ such a child. A child that was a better person than Weiss, was all.

Weiss finally remembered to lapse her glyphs as Ruby floated towards her. Neo lifted her head, transitioning from recreation to sentry duty. When Ruby set down in front of Weiss, Neo jumped away to scout the area.

"Thank you for everything you've done to help," Ruby began her farewell speech.

Couldn't let _that_ go on. "You're quite welcome." Weiss gave her a wry smile. "You may find I've gone above and beyond this time. First, I got this." Weiss handed the umbrella over to Ruby, who popped it open. "Whole pile of upgrades. You know, since her last one got melted."

"And the rest is around here somewhere?" Ruby gave the abandoned buildings around them a glance.

"Sort of." Weiss paused. "I made a few alterations to the packing list. I think you'll like them."

"What _kind_ of alterations?"

Weiss shrugged, although Ruby may have missed it in the dim light. "The substantial kind."

Both turned to Neo, stomping around a corner towards them. She'd found it. Weiss had to butter Ruby up fast. "Ruby. How would you like to get to the fair folk two whole weeks earlier than you'd planned?"

To her credit, Ruby understood immediately. "I can't fly anything, Weiss."

Neo mashed her fingers on her scroll and held it up, glaring. ʙᴜʟʟʜᴇᴀᴅ ᴘᴀʀᴋᴇᴅ.

"Faster than a car, faster than walking, and certainly faster than that silver glide you have."

"Weiss, I thought we settled this. It has to be just Neo and me. I can't risk anybody else."

"Be a hero and slay the monsters. We all know your story, Ruby. And hers." Weiss nodded to Neo, even now watching Ruby for approval. "Did you ever think that some of us need to save others, too?" That others have something to prove, something to make them not _father's good girl._ Or even _father's bad girl._ "Or that I made a promise to myself that I'd see this through? See _you_ through to the end?

" _Everything_ I did for you. I took my old post just to stay out of mindshot of Blake. Supplies. Logistics. I made your dream into reality, Ruby. The _first_ thing we settled was that you were the leader and I was the follower. Remember? _Let me follow you._ "

ɪ'ᴍ ɴᴏᴛ sᴜʀᴇ ᴡᴇɪss ᴜɴᴅᴇʀsᴛᴀɴᴅs ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ/ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡᴇʀ ᴅʏɴᴀᴍɪᴄ, typed Neo.

"Oh, you be quiet," suggested Weiss. Rather fruitlessly."Also, I can't fly a bullhead either, so I'm bringing a pilot."

"Absolutely not," ordered Ruby. Neo began typing some more, so Weiss yanked the umbrella from Ruby's hands and thrust it towards the woman. Her eyes widened and she reached out to take it, dropping her scroll. _Hopefully, that takes care of her._

"Bullheads are complicated, and the best I can do is watch a laid-in course. I spent all that money on a craft capable of nonstop flight. Trust me. This is about the fate of the world."

"I can't bring some civilian with me to battle the magical beings that made the grimm."

Aha. Ruby had moved from complaining about Weiss, to complaining about the pilot. Progress. "Ruby, what happens if you lose this fight?"

"I _won't_ lose it," she objected.

"You're right." Weiss picked up the thread. "We _won't_. Because the fate of all four kingdoms depend on our success. We _have_ to win, because if we lose, it won't matter whether one civilian spent her last few months making a difference or running errands for the SDC."

Neo found a spot on her belt for a second umbrella and picked her scroll back up. Then she re-pocketed it, threw her old umbrella away, took the scroll back out, and typed ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ғʟʏ ᴀ ʙᴜʟʟʜᴇᴀᴅ.

"Good," said Weiss and Ruby in unison.

"You got me," admitted Weiss. "I didn't know Neo could fly bullheads. We can leave the pilot."

"Good," repeated Ruby, bemused. "Wait, something's wrong."

"Come on." Weiss started around the corner, waving the other two on. "Let's tell Sinnika. We'll drop her off in the city before we leave."


	6. Endless Dream

_Hey, Summer. Summer. Hey, Summer. That's pretty funny._

"It's being cagey," the chalk woman said, removing the grimm from Pilo's chest. "We'll need to isolate not the trust, but the quadrant itself."

Pilo stopped screaming.

_That was fun, wasn't it Summer? But I don't need to do it again. Summer, I get it. But it's time to stop. Tell me where to go._

"She's babbling again." The chalk man leaned in, his glowing red eyes filling Pilo's vision. "Planning an escape."

"She won't get far," reassured the woman. "Fall is giving, with those orders she loves. Spring is having, the minds of those around her. Summer is taking. The important part, at least. The part we need to draw."

_Summer? They're not stopping. Please, Summer. I know we like to play, but you have to think about the future. It will be much easier to get me out while I still have a leg._

"That leaves the last one." They stopped paying attention to Pilo again. "Do we know her powers? No records in my notes."

_And yes, I know you love a challenge. We've overcome so much together, we really have. This is nothing, I know it. Summer. Please. Please, Summer._

"The fourth quadrant isn't adjacent. Relax, the old man didn't build them _that_ complex."

The man took out another tiny grimm and held his hand above it. Pilo tried and tried again to copy the black and red mist seeping from his hand to the bug, but every time her insides remained as empty as the last. Summer was still there, though, even if she was silent. Where else could she be?

"Are you ready for the live trial?" asked the man.

_Summer..._

"Give it a burst and check for green. Then we'll try the real thing."

_Summer, please!_

The man walked back to Pilo's table and placed the beetle over her collarbone. It spit tar onto her chest, which burned as it sank through her aura, into her chest.

"Summer!" Pilo screamed. "Help!" She squeezed her eye shut.

"Green, Ma'am," the man shouted to the woman.

"Live trial," the chalk woman shouted back, picking the beetle up and moving somewhere into Pilo's blind spot.

Pilo stopped screaming.

_You know, Summer, usually I see what you're trying to do. Sometimes it takes a while to see it. But I don't. I've tried so hard this time and I don't see what you want from me. It hurts, Summer. Why can't I leave?_

The man left the room. The woman circled the table into Pilo's line of sight and smiled. "You still think it's going to save you."

Pilo smiled, cracking a lip. "Summer always saves me."

The woman smiled, too. "You're alone here. Your better half is in hiding. And all that we've done to you hasn't been enough to draw her back. Yet."

"Summer is here. Summer is always here. We're never apart." _That_ was why Pilo would escape. The chalk woman didn't understand. Pilo was _special_ to Summer. They were a team. If Pilo was still here it was because Summer wanted her to be. She didn't get it, but it was the truth.

The chalk woman ran her fingertips down Pilo's cheek. "Darling, if your Summer had been here, you wouldn't have had to endure a thing. You could still be..." She retracted the hand. "Whole."

Then she made a fist and brought it down on one of Pilo's fingers, splayed and strapped to the table. Bones broke.

Pilo screamed.

"Thought so." The woman turned around and busied herself with her notes, written in unfamiliar script. Not that reading was so important. Summer told Pilo when she needed to know something. Summer, who had brought Pilo here for a reason. Summer always had a reason. A greater purpose.

A reason it was worthwhile.

The man strode back into the room. Behind him came another. Pilo copied her before she even recognized who.

Specialist Winter, eyes downcast, followed the man with resignation in her step.

But that didn't make sense. This semblance, it was so interesting! Endless twists and turns bringing Pilo anywhere she wanted. The sheer force of possibility almost outweighed all of the pain in Pilo's body. For a second, she could forget it all, and pretend she was standing back in Atlas somewhere.

Why had she ever left?

"Hold out your hand," the chalk woman told Winter. An open palm and a pulsing of black lines were the only response she got. The woman placed the beetle in Winter's arms.

Summer warmed. Pilo's eye widened.

 _Summer! What is it?_ Explanations could wait. Recriminations could wait. There wasn't much time. _What do I do?_

Pilo looked around the room. Chalk man, cool. Chalk woman, cooler. Winter, cold.

Pilo looked down at her own body. Summer warmed.

_So I can use this semblance to fix myself._

Summer cooled. Winter stepped up to Pilo.

_I don't fix myself._

Summer warmed. Winter held the grimm above Pilo's head, facing into her eye.

_Then how do I get out?_

"I'm sorry," whispered Winter, crying.

Summer froze in Pilo's veins. Despite the warmth of the room, she felt like she was standing naked in the middle of an Atlas winter. Pilo began to shiver. Glyphs appeared. Pilo was making them.

The grimm spit its tar across her face.

It was _so cold…_


	7. Flak

"You are my friend and I love you," Ruby had told her, months back. "I love you," Ruby had said six times this week alone. "You've made my life better." "Save me." "It will be all right."

Neo was special to Ruby. Maybe not how Ruby was special to Neo; she was trying to accept that. But she was special nonetheless. They had a bond. They were a unit. Together, they were powerful. Complete.

No bullhead could compare to that bond, not even a multi-room SDC model closer to an airship. And neither could an umbrella.

Spinning her chair away from the controls, Neo fired the canopy across the bridge, before retracting it with the central chain. Yes, it was a _very_ slick umbrella. She fired it again.

"Hey!" shouted Weiss, dodging back into the doorway as the canopy shot past. "Be careful with that, you clod!"

Neo sighed. _Then don't sneak up on people while they're..._ What was Neo doing? _While they're training?_ She retracted the canopy. ɪ ᴀᴘᴏʟᴏɢɪᴢᴇ. ᴛʜᴀɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ. The buttons all lay exactly where she rested her fingers. Weiss had never measured Neo's hand, at least not while she was awake. But _that_ seemed farfetched.

She wasn't sneaky _._ She was just... insidious. Impossible to be rid of. Capable of getting inside a person's head. With gifts, or...

"Hm." Weiss gave a curt nod. "Just see that it doesn't happen again. I understand that you want to play." Her gaze slid across the panels behind Neo's chair. "Some people find responsibility... confining." Responsibility had been a refrain with Weiss as long as Neo had known her. Funny, for the woman juggling the largest kingdom in the world with the end of said world. "We're making good time?"

ᴡᴇ'ʟʟ ʙᴇ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴏᴏʀᴅɪɴᴀᴛᴇs ʙʏ ɴɪɢʜᴛғᴀʟʟ.

"Good." Weiss licked her lips and averted her gaze. "I misjudged you, Neopolitan. I thought... That doesn't matter. You've left it all behind you, haven't you?"

Weiss was clearly too stubborn to ask what she wanted answered, so Neo skipped the middleman. ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡ ʀᴜʙʏ ʀᴏsᴇ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʜᴇʟʟ.

"Well. You do have a flair for drama." She didn't ask another question. Clearly, Neo had guessed correctly. "Just as clear, you don't like me. Explain yourself."

ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ʜᴏᴡ ɪ ғᴇᴇʟ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ.

"I assume loathing makes your list."

Neo began to type.

"Are you... are you actually writing a list?"

Neo held up her scroll, and Weiss stepped closer. The font size had reduced to fit her message on-screen. ʀᴜʙʏ ᴀɴᴅ ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜ. ʏᴏᴜ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ᴜs. ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ʜᴏᴡ ɪ ғᴇᴇʟ ᴡʜᴇɴ ɪ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜʏ.

"I..." Weiss's single confident syllable was followed by silence and a pointed finger. "I don't know what that light means."

Neo swiveled her chair back to the controls, where a light above the environmental imaging board blinked quietly. The board's last refresh had found an airborne presence.

ɢʀɪᴍᴍ

"Should we wake Ruby?"

Ruby could destroy grimm with little more than a glance.

ɴᴏ. Neo throttled the ship down to a stop. Thirty seconds until contact if the grimm didn't slow, and it wasn't going to. She got up and walked past Weiss, out of the room to the cabin door. Ruby needed her sleep. Deserved it.

"Fine then." Weiss followed her over and slapped the release. "Let's take care of it." A nevermore was visible in the moonlight. About the size of a standard bullhead. Smaller than this one. Still capable of damage.

ᴄᴀɴ ʏᴏᴜ sʟᴏᴡ ɪᴛ?

"You may not need me." The nevermore dove for the ship, then slammed into a black glyph appearing fifteen feet from the craft. "But you can use me."

Neo shot her umbrella's canopy through the glyph past the creature's head, then pressed the button to open it. Then she retracted it and was lifted off her feet when the canopy hooked on the grimm's horn.

 _Don't look down._ They were about two hundred feet up. As long as she kept hold of her umbrella, she could float to safety. The beast opened its mouth and screeched, possibly waking Ruby.

Then Neo passed through the glyph and into the creature's mouth. _I can use this._ A few button presses and the canopy snaked into the mouth to join her.

The nevermore closed its beak, so Neo popped the blade from her umbrella and stabbed upwards. Again and again and again and again. The monster's tongue pressed up on her, which only increased the power of her strikes.

Then the tongue went limp. Neo felt herself start to fall. _Perhaps I didn't think this through._

She tried to pry open the mouth, but it was surprisingly stubborn for a corpse. She stood on her toes and strained, and a crack let her see the bullhead rising out of view.

 _Can't float down inside here._ Neo fired her canopy. It shot towards the bullhead's landing strut, and she opened it at its zenith. It didn't reach.

A white glyph appeared around it, and the chain went taut. Neo placed both hands on the handle and squeezed as the nevermore beak grabbed her and pulled. She strained. Her aura drained.

Until the nevermore was washed away in a wave of light from above. Neo retracted the chain and shot past her canopy's glyph anchor to the bullhead. Ruby reached out the cabin door and pulled her in.

 _Fine. That was stupid._ The woman had made her point. Neo gave Ruby a hug and a quick kiss to quiet her cooing before turning to Weiss and bracing for her comeuppance.

"I need you," Weiss told her, unflinching.

Neo scrunched her eyebrows in confusion. Ruby placed a supporting hand on her shoulder.

"I need responsibilities. But I need to commit to them. I need a leader I can choose to follow. I need team RWBY." Weiss slapped the door control closed before continuing. "Structure. Responsibility. Trust. You two trust me enough to let me invite myself along, because I know I'll do good. I trust Ruby Rose enough to know I'll do good when she tells me how.

"We may only be Team Rowan right now, but it'll do. Satisfy my needs, Neo."

"Wake me if there's more," Ruby said without judgement. Then she nodded at the pair and exited the room. Neo watched her go.

"...Even if I'm keeping you from satisfying one of yours."

Neo glared. Weiss smiled that smile the self-important get when they're right.


	8. You

The world shook. "Yang! Yang!" Cried a voice. Not cloying or idolizing like Ruby. Urgent.

Yang snapped her eyes open and started to freeze her arm on. "What is... what's going-"

She found it hard to say more as her face was pressed into Blake's nightshirt. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank god you're still here!"

"Whuv vhoing ah?" asked Yang, unsuccessfully.

"After the note I thought you'd left. And then when you hadn't and you were here... but you're alive." Blake loosened her hug, letting Yang take a breath.

 _So that's what that's like._ "I don't understand." _Appreciate the affection, yes. But I don't understand it._ What did Blake make of Yang's mind now? "Note?"

"Ruby," answered the maiden. "She's gone with Neo. They're going to save the world. She... wanted to tell you."

But not tell Blake. And any knowledge in Yang's mind would be fair game. _Ruby's gone?_ "Why?" Again?

"Because she said we'll wear out until we break, and she wanted to make a move while she had the strength. And Ruby was right. Neo said if I learned about it I would make them take me, and she was right too."

Ruby, of course, would be fine. What other choice was there? "No. You wouldn't have left Mistral defenseless, you dummy."

"Yang, I will do whatever I can to make this end. Even if it means letting Mistral die. Vacuo is just happy the beetles die in the sun, Ozpin organized building-proofing in Vale, and Atlas had reduced grimm numbers for whatever reason. Humanity can survive with any of the three. It _won't_ survive if Ruby and Neo fail. Or if they take too long to succeed."

Yang raised an eyebrow. "Well, _I'm_ in Mistral."

"I'd take you along too, dummy. After..." Blake paused. "I won't lose you."

Yang crossed her arms. "Weiss is in Mistral."

"You're going to keep naming people all morning if I let you, aren't you?"

Blake could play cold as much as she wanted, but she would do the right thing when it came down to it. Especially if, yes, she never had a chance to do the wrong one. "I might."

Blake sighed, turning to sit on the edge of the bed. "It doesn't matter anyway. I'll need a statement for the council. What will we do about the sanitarium?"

Yang poked her legs off of the bed and sat next to Blake."Oh great and all-powerful maiden of spring, can I shower before I save the city?"

Blake ran a hand through her own hair. "I haven't showered either. Does it add to my aura of brash authority?"

Yang threw an icy arm around her shoulders. Blake was still perfect, and Yang knew that Blake knew that Yang thought it. "If you talk to the council in person, you might be able to intimidate them through smell," she conceded. The conversation felt wrong, even besides the news about Ruby. But comfortable. Maybe Yang was too tired to straighten it out.

"I'm not... I'm not good enough," Blake whispered. "More and more are flying over the vinewall. I can't grow it. I could spend all day trying, but I'm run dry."

"Blake, you got all your statistics from _my_ beautiful brain," Yang answered. "Sure, more grimm sightings, but blighting within the perimeter is going down daily. If the rate doesn't flatten, we'll be statistically fine in a year or two."

"How many blighted do you suppose we'll have in a year or two?" Blake stared straight through Yang's eyes.

"Three, four hundred thousand?" guessed Yang. It was too early in the morning for math. "Depends what the curve does. Maybe half, maybe triple."

"So, how do you suppose ten million people keep over a million blighted in captivity without them escaping or destroying the place? They get to me, that's endgame." Blake shivered. "All of Mistral is fair game."

Yang leaned closer. "We won't have to, because Ruby will be fine without us."

Blake slipped from Yang's arm and stood up. "Good. Write that down, we'll edit after breakfast. Do we have time for breakfast?"

Yang spread her arms and flopped back down onto her bed. "What if we don't tell them?"

"Come on, Yang, you think they won't notice the missing argent?"

"Maybe they won't connect it to us?"

"I'm the green goddess." Blake was through the door, in the kitchen. "Everything is my fault."

Yang got out of bed and followed her through the doorway. Blake seemed honest and unusually grateful. Time to take a little risk. "Mind if I join you in that shower?"

"I don't think that results in faster showers, Yang." Blake looked her up and down. "But... no."

Yang's smile lasted only a second before another thought came to her. "So, why did you think I was missing? Or dead?"

Blake shrugged, pulling off her nightshirt and opening the bathroom door. "Couldn't hear your mind. Still can't. Weird, right? But nice."

A thought came to Yang. " _The minds of maidens are excised from their own province," Tahki explained. "Although such strife portends much ill."_

The thought came to her, but Yang was very aware that she didn't think it.

"You coming?" Blake stood nude in the bathroom doorway.

"I have to lie down," Yang managed.

_Who else is in here?_

It didn't have to tell her the answer.


	9. Dead City

"I have to leave," Ruby told her. "Tell me you want me to stay."

Neo opened her mouth and gasped.

"I can't follow where your path leads," the huntress told her. "Please. Tell me we can work. That it can be better."

Neo ran towards her, but it was like moving through glue. Ruby's body darkened and merged into the night, until only her face was visible, filling her vision. Then it lightened into a familiar shade. The pallor of death.

Neo lifted her head from the controls and blinked sleep from her eyes. She was flying the bullhead. The bullhead had Ruby on it. Ruby was with her. Weiss too, but Ruby was with her. Ruby loved her. Ruby was with her. There was nothing to worry about.

Neo awoke to a city.

On a second look, not a full city. A town. The buildings were mostly wood, with thatch roofs, many unfinished. A few people looked up at the bullhead. Squinting in the late afternoon sun, probably, but their faces were too far away to tell. All that was visible were their utilitarian, homemade outfits.

She slapped off the proximity alarms and began angling for a landing. These were the coordinates, no question about it. Neo never got a full picture from Ruby, but what she knew didn't really point to the area being populated.

"What was that? We're landing?" Ruby peeked her head into the bridge. Neo pointed down, so Ruby ran up to her chair and leaned over the controls. "This is the spot?"

ᴛʜɪs ɪs ᴛʜᴇ sᴘᴏᴛ, Neo answered, bringing the bullhead low over the town square.

"Something's wrong." Neo got up and hugged her. "Oh hey, you're... This is nice. But do you need to finish landing?"

Neo left the ship first, at her insistence. She kept her umbrella in a moderate guard against the villagers ringing the square. Ruby followed, eyes sweeping the crowd. Weiss stood in the hatchway and watched them.

Ahead of Neo, the crowd parted, and three people approached. The one in front was an older man in a suit Neo didn't recognize. Behind him and to his right was Cinder Fall. On his other side was a tall, white-haired woman wearing a dark cloak with the hood down.

"Winter!" shouted Weiss, bounding from the ship and past a shocked Ruby. _Have I heard that name? Some relation? They look similar..._

Neo held out an arm and clotheslined Weiss as she passed. The huntress's feet swung in front of her body before her back smacked into the dirt. Neo stepped forward to guard her while she recovered. None of the three newcomers, nor the crowd around them, made a move while she got to her feet. Neo placed a palm on Weiss's shoulder, warning her to stay put.

Cinder smiled. "Ruby Rose, let's talk. By now you should know what happens when you burn away entrenched Blighting." Like Raven, the Xiao Long mother. "I would advise you not to use your powers here, unless you enjoy killing."

Giving Raven to Ruby, had that been planned? No, not a chance. Cinder was making the most of what she knew. She knew that Ruby would want to avoid death, even the death of those that were already trapped, already dead. Even though, with Neo and a Schnee at her back, she'd be able to defeat the maiden.

"Why?" asked Ruby. "Why fight me? They _made_ the grimm. They want to destroy us all. You're free, Cinder. Why are you on their side?"

"Winter," Weiss whimpered.

"Do not presume your view is the only one that makes sense," Cinder cautioned. "Do not presume you know the truth of things. I am fighting to end this war, and I hope to do so..." She paused. "Peacefully."

"Run," choked out Winter, a black spiderweb of lines playing over her face.

"Enslaving people and forcing them to kill _can't_ be right," insisted Ruby, walking between Neo and Weiss. "Grimm can't be right."

"Follow." Cinder smiled. "Salem wants to speak with you, argent. Your friends won't be harmed." Salem. Neo had heard the name.

Neo grabbed ahold of Ruby's sleeve. No _way_ was she leaving Ruby alone.

"We'll stay together, if that's all the same to you," Ruby said, grabbing Weiss's hand. "And we'll take Winter as an act of good faith. She hasn't been blighted long." Of course. Emerald had mentioned Salem. Defeated by the horrors she'd seen, the woman had killed Mercury in a futile attempt to outrun her past. Had she turned when she saw the fair folk creating the blighting beetles to enslave humanity? Or had there been something else, something worse?

"Winter is not mine to give." Cinder turned around, Winter and the silent man aping her movement. "Sorry, Silver. More reason to speak with Salem. She's quite accommodating." They began to walk away.

"Hold it!" Weiss found her voice and, apparently, her indignation. "Where are you going?"

"You came this far to see the fair city. Were you planning to stop now?"

Ruby's first step pulled her sleeve from Neo's grasp. Slowly, robotically, she began to follow. Neo and Weiss joined her. Scattered onlookers did as well, an assortment of the villagers ringing the square breaking off to walk with them. Neo couldn't see any pattern in who moved and who stayed.

Cinder led the group to a small hole in the ground and walked down into it. There were stairs, carved from rock. She conjured a ball of flame and took them into the earth, Winter and the old man following. Keeping the blighted behind her as a shield.

As Ruby stepped into the stairwell herself, Neo held up her scroll. ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ʜᴏʟᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟɪɢʜᴛᴇᴅ ʙᴇʜɪɴᴅ ᴜs. Weiss could use glyphs to cut off escape. It would be the perfect spot to end Cinder's threat.

"Neo..." Ruby frowned. Her lip was quivering in the darkness. She looked beautiful. _Stop thinking that._ "I don't _like_ killing. I don't want to..."

They followed Cinder's flame further inside. Silhouettes of villagers appeared in the rectangle of sky behind them, one by one by one, until the stairs behind them were packed.

"...If there's a chance we can talk this out, I want to take it. I'm sorry, Neo. And don't worry, Weiss. We'll get Winter back."

Weiss followed her leader.

Neo followed her lover.

Down they went.


	10. Quagmire

"So." Yang spoke to her closed door. "I can't just get rid of you."

 _Yang stood tall, though her posturing couldn't fool the woman next to her. She squeezed Blake's hand as the vines wove themselves tight across the street in front of them, forming into a wall. Blake would know it didn't mean_ everything will be alright. _Yang would simply let it communicate,_ I'm with you.

Fatalism. Yang was the maiden of summer to stay.

"You're planning to take over my life, then. To control what I do. Make me work for your convoluted plans."

" _Hush, Ruby." Yang pulled the blanket across the wagon, until it covered her sister up to her neck. "We're looking for mom. Another mom. You'll see."_

Determination. Bossiness. The Souls of Summer had claimed her.

"What happened to Pilo?"

_Blake threw the curtain aside to reveal the body that had once held Sylvia. Maiden of Spring. Trusted adviser. Best friend. She turned back to Yang, and Yang saw reflected in those eyes her pain and confusion._

Sadness. Regret. Intention. The trust of souls had killed Pilo, because it felt it had to.

Which meant that – unless Pilo's soul had both the desire and the influence to change the trust's dedication to its cause – this memory was also a threat.

Fine. Yang would play along, for now. "What do you want from me?"

 _The deathstalker clicked and clattered its way forwards, closing faster than Yang could even dream. She placed one foot in front of the other, running her body to its breaking point. There_ could _be a chance she would arrive in time. Things might not be over. But in the back of Yang's mind, a small voice asked her,_ How will you protect the rest of them after it kills Ruby?

Contingency. The next stage of defense.

"Is there any chance you can ease up on my life's lowlights reel?"

No response to that one, of course.

"Listen, Summer. Summers. Whatever I'm speaking to. I'm not going to bet on Ruby's death. She'll succeed."

_The man stood with his sword, and it took Yang a moment to comprehend what he looked down on. A figure she'd seen so many times in the past, but never in that pose, never with that expression of fear, pain, and defeat. The man looked at Yang, and under his mask, he smiled._

Impending loss.

"You're not going to intimidate me. Sorry if you planned on that. If Ruby" not dies, never dies "fails, I'll head to the sanitarium, stare a blighted woman in the eyes, and kill myself. So if you don't want the fair folk controlling you, maybe you should plan for me supporting Ruby's victory instead, all right?"

" _Soon as the bandage was on, she took off." Sun shrugged. "Maybe she saw something she had to do." He stared out the window, pretending not to notice Yang's tears, more than she'd shed over her own mutilation._

Betrayal.

"Well, maybe you should've thought of that before you killed your last vessel and assumed I'd be your slave too."

" _We're headed off to search for Cinder," Ruby said. "It won't be easy. But we can get to the bottom of what happened at Beacon. It's... It's an adventure." She reached for Yang's hand. "Like you always wanted."_

_Yang yanked it out of reach._

Regret. And more regret.

"Yeah. You screwed up. Get used to living with it."

Yang was again alone. It was a little relaxing thinking her own thoughts, but at the same time, rather worrisome. What was Summer planning? Were all of the former maidens having some hasty conference deciding how to deal with her?

Yang recalled something on her own. _The trust of souls invariably drive the maiden to wood and ruin._

"You've marked me, haven't you? I won't last long. You'll drive me mad. You'll... Then that's it." Yang Xiao Long, Maiden of Summer, might persist. But sooner or later, Yang would be gone.

" _I release your soul." Yang removed her hand. Ruby gave off a burst of red and steadied herself on her feet._

" _Oh, wow." She flexed her tiny hands and smiled. "Wow. Wow, Yang. Why didn't daddy want Uncle Qrow to give me aura?" She smiled, testing her body, moving back and forth, jumping up and down. "This is amazing! I can do_ anything _."_

The feeling of, in an innocent desire to help, placing another on a path that would inevitably lead them far, far away from you. A very specific feeling. One Yang didn't know others had felt.

"You don't mean to hurt them."

Of course it didn't.

"Well, what if you don't speak to me? Do I get better? Stop getting worse?"

" _I always pegged you for an actress." Her uncle paused and tapped his chin. "Or private investigator. Maybe fashion designer. Signal Academy doesn't teach any of those, in case that changes your mind."_

 _Yang shook her head. Ruby wouldn't be a private eye, or join the police, or be content to stay in the kingdoms. So Yang would have to join her. No. Yang_ wanted _to join her._

Good-faith, optimistic desperation. Summer was willing to help. She just didn't expect her help to make a difference.

Yang exhaled and kept her lungs empty until it burned. She needed to _think_. There was a way out. There was always a way out. A way to save the world, and her sister, and herself.

"So, what do I have to prepare for when Ruby wins?"

 _A villain strode into an alleyway and out of view. Roman Torchwick. Yang turned the bike and pulled onto the sidewalk in front of a sign labeled_ Frozen Delights _. It was a useful pursuit. Whatever else she'd agreed to do, he needed to be found._

"Finding someone? Where am I looking?"

 _Yang turned the bike and pulled onto the sidewalk in front of a sign labeled_ Frozen Delights _._

Perhaps her interpretation had been incomplete. "Alright, no need to get clever about it. This is my first day." The first of...

The first day of Ruby's victory. That was all Yang had to know.

Yang opened her door.


	11. Glass

_You made it. Somehow, you're the hero you always wished you could be._

"Nubu, left."

"Sir." The huntress nodded to Jaune and took off down the alley, stepping in the puddle and leaving bloody boot-prints in her wake. The alley was misdirection, the streak on the wall far too obvious. But he couldn't _ignore_ it. Maybe Nubu could find the... the source of the blood.

_Does the reality live up to the dream?_

Ren followed Jaune up the street. He saw no more blood stains... maybe the alley _had_ been a double bluff. Walking further down the street, Jaune didn't see a single sign of the quarry, or even...

Jaune checked his watch. Just past seven. "Ren, where is everybody?"

"I do not know."

"Where was that blighted last week?"

"We hunted one a few blocks from here." Ren pointed. "That way."

"Well... figure it out. The people thing." The streets hadn't been bustling and busy that day, but there had been plenty of people around, and it had been fully dark. Almost half the shops and restaurants on the street had been open, and a few of the closed ones looked only closed for the night.

Few storefronts on this street looked empty or dusty, but it was hard to tell. Every single one was dark.

ғᴏᴜɴᴅ ʙᴏᴅʏ. ʙʟᴏᴏᴅʏ, Nubu sent.

ᴊᴏɪɴ ᴜs ᴜᴘsᴛʀᴇᴇᴛ. They could note the time in her report, using the message timestamp. Mistral wasn't bursting with excess manpower. The dead would be cared for, eventually. Jaune kept walking, Ren trailing behind, absorbed in his scroll.

"This may be it," Ren decided. "Mistral Daily. A source close to the council reports that the Red Reaper has gone missing."

"Missing?" Ruby? "What does missing mean?"

"More reports to follow." Ren shut his scroll. Boots on pavement behind them forecasted Nubu's arrival.

More to follow? Why not just write it now? Why keep this important information...

No. More important. If Ruby was missing, what did that mean?

It meant bad things. It meant that Cinder couldn't be defeated. It meant that blighted couldn't be healed. It meant that Mistral was on the brink of collapse, from detainment infrastructure on down.

They approached a nondescript intersection. "Trail's going cold. Nubu, left. Ren, right." They would find something. They always did. Jaune walked up the empty street, teammates peeling off in unison.

Some lights _were_ on. Not the streetlights, there wasn't enough power to keep those up everywhere. But a few lights in upstairs windows. Jaune looked up at one, the floor over an atlesian grill. All it showed him was a ceiling.

He heard prayer. Many voices.

 _Ruby._ All Jaune had thought of was himself. Was she all right?

_The whole city will miss you, Ruby. And I care for you. Be safe._

Jaune kept walking, ears open. The angle was usually wrong for him to see people through the windows, but he heard a lot of people. Most cried or prayed. Mistral wasn't terribly religious. The apocalypse must bring that out of people.

It was another half block before he heard a shout. It came from a window to his right. High-pitched. Quickly cut off.

Jaune tapped a two-burst on the scroll before he opened the nearest stairwell door. The others would seek him out if they didn't have a lead themselves. Then he stowed the scroll and unfolded his shield, taking the steps two at a time. They led to a small hallway with two doors, one open. The room was dark, lit by a window.

Inside was a man, standing over two figures. Another man, kneeling. Behind him, against a wall, a boy. The standing man raised a cleaver above his head, knuckles white on its handle. A shaft of moonlight illuminated the kneeling man's terror. Perhaps, a father.

"Hey!" shouted Jaune.

The man turned in time for Jaune's thrown shield to impact his chest instead of his back. He flew past the room's other occupants and into a wall, but pushed back off in a moment, cleaver still in hand.

Jaune didn't give him time to settle into a stance. He darted into the room and swung, but the man blocked the blow with his cleaver. Sparks lit the maniac's expressionless face. If only he were laughing, grinning, anything that betrayed madness. It would make Jaune's job so much easier.

The man went on the offensive, swinging the cleaver wildly, leaving himself open. Jaune blocked with Crocea Mors, but the cleaver was smaller, easier to maneuver. And the man, the blighted, was tall.

_I have to strike back._

The man would probably die.

With Ruby gone, what else could they do? Lock him up forever? He was _already_ dead. Worse, even.

Jaune missed a block, and the cleaver scored against his arm, scraping away aura. He yelled and swung Crocea at the man's neck. The sword struck air. The man was tumbling to the ground, the father's arms around his waist. They landed in the room's square of moonlight.

The blighted swung his cleaver down in an arc, towards the other man's head. It impacted Jaune's hand, biting into his glove. The hand held Crocea Mors, which pinned the attacker's chest to the floor.

Jaune grabbed the father by the shoulder and heaved him off the body, then went to retrieve his shield. Had to stay calm. Team would be here any minute. Secure the scene. Bandage hand. Fix the...

With a sickening sound, the blighted embedded the cleaver deep into his own stomach and ran it up his chest. At last, a smile appeared on his face. "Get back!" Jaune yelled to the others.

A beetle burst through the incision, heading straight for the child. Jaune dove and swung his shield. He struck the beetle square on, hurling it straight through the window, leaving a circular hole in the glass. His dive brought him down on the body.

Jaune climbed to his feet, feeling sick. Secure the scene. Team should be here. One was already coming up the steps. Jaune rocked back on his feet.

Yang Xiao Long burst into the room, wearing her old battle uniform with her ice arm exposed. She took in the scene in a fraction of a second and walked straight to the boy, now standing stock still in a corner, trying to shrink from the carnage in front of him.

"Sorry, kid." She placed a warm hand on his cheek and a cold one on his chest, and began to glow yellow. The boy shrank from her touch, but a violet glow spread across his skin and clothing. "I release your soul, and by my honor, protect thee."

"Yang," choked out Jaune. "What are..."

She turned, like she was seeing him for the first time. "Jaune. Hey. Sorry, can't explain. On a mission. It's... it's time sensitive." She turned back to the boy, no longer glowing. "And I am sorry about this."

In an instant, her arm turned to water. The red puddle on the floor became a much larger pink one.

"That's better. Thanks."

With a quiet _pop_ , she disappeared.

Somehow, Jaune's confusion overrode his urge to vomit. "Please..." Security. Ritual. Routine. "Remain calm. We're going to be fine."

He decided, as Nubu and Ren finally arrived, that he didn't much enjoy being a hero after all.


	12. Temptation

The passage seemed to change as they walked. Ruby couldn't put her finger on it. Then it ended, in a land of pink and blue, and it became all too clear.

The passageway opened up into a city. With its own lights, its own buildings, its own paved roads...

And its own sky, thick with pink smog. With a planet in it.

Neo gasped and squeezed Ruby's hand. Weiss, on her other side, studied the planet above but made no move towards another. Was that...

It was. Vacuo. Vale. Atlas. The fair folk lived far away, it seemed. And somehow, that passage... the tunnel had taken them here. She turned back. The tunnel was a hole, in a hill stuck through with purple crystals.

"Come," ordered Cinder. Ruby had stopped at some point. She squeezed Neo's hand back and kept walking.

They were on a wide paved street, moving through regular blocks of buildings. The buildings were brownish grey, like the street beneath them. They had doors and windows, but none had glass. Occasionally, Ruby would catch sight of a face in one of the windows. They resembled humans, but with white skin and black lines.

Black lines, like blighted. White skin, almost like grimm.

Cinder reached another wide street and the group turned left. They were getting deeper and deeper into the city, but the passage was all that mattered. Ruby would have to remember how many blocks she walked from the first street. The street that led to the cave, to the tunnel, to the passage home.

"I don't like this," whispered Weiss. Ruby found it hard to disagree.

The street flared outwards into a circle, with a gentle slope leading to a depression in the center, and a large building to the right. Cinder led them straight down the slope and up the other side, to a hill with stairs carved into its side. The buildings stopped and the crystals resumed as they marched on up.

At the top of the hill was a woman of white and black, facing away. She wore a dark cloak and had most of her hair done up in a bun. She was gazing off of the hill at... it almost looked like the moon. But then, if that was the moon, where were they?

The woman turned back at the small crowd approaching. "Just Ruby, please." She gave them a warm smile.

Ruby grabbed Weiss with her free hand. "We're staying together," she answered with as much confidence as she could muster.

The white woman nodded, like it didn't matter one bit. "Fine. Join me. Everybody else can leave." Ruby surged past Cinder and the blighted, yanking Weiss's hand as Winter passed them heading down. From this close she could see that the lines on the woman's face weren't black, but dark red.

"You'll have to forgive me." The woman waved her arm across the sky, and behind it, the moon vanished. "I was reminiscing. I am Salem. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

Did Ruby introduce herself back? Salem already knew who she was. Should she introduce Neo and Weiss? Would Salem see them as a weakness to be exploited?

Why couldn't speaking with people be _simple_ like it used to be?

"What do you want from me?" Ruby asked. Cinder and her blighted had stopped halfway down the hill, waiting.

Salem, the fey, nodded. "To the point. I've finally figured out a way to end this war. With your help, humans and my people can make peace within the day. It won't be easy for me, or for you. But rest assured, we can do it."

Peace? With the people that created the grimm? "Why shouldn't I destroy this entire city?"

"Because innocent people will be killed if you do," Salem answered. "Both humans and mine. And yes, I have done terrible things to protect my people. But we... we were never the aggressors in this war." She pointed at Ruby, and a grinding sound preceded a set of three rough-hewn stone chairs rising from the hill for her and her companions to sit in. "I will explain."

Ruby glanced at Neo and Weiss. All three remained standing.

"Long ago." Salem didn't seem to notice. "Humanity was a primitive, barbaric, warlike people." She smiled like an affectionate mother, as though she had some unvoiced opinions on the present state of humanity. "We met them then. Though some felt pity, we elected to treat them as equals. We gave and gave, though you had little to offer in return. We gave food. We gave shelter." Her voice darkened. "We gave magic.

"We gave humanity a drop of strength and it became aura and semblance. We gave them willfulness and they grew horns, beaks and tails; some bred true. We gave one human a brush and he drew slices of a year in paint that stuck to the species. More and more did we give. It seemed that with our patronage, they could do no wrong. Humanity thrived and spread. Now we were outnumbered, but what did it matter? We were partners. Equals."

"I still hope to find out _why_ you attacked." She gestured, and the image of the shattered moon reappeared in the sky. Or perhaps the image was in miniature, feet from where they stood. "One day we found that a man had stolen powers unique to our race and woven a dark tapestry into his own. A power for humanity whose only purpose was death and destruction. The unmaking of fey and our works."

Silver eyes.

"In one move, our former allies had us moments from extinction." Weiss was squeezing Ruby's hand harder than before, likely unintentionally. "We had cities on Remnant. Numbers. Trade. Harmony. No longer."

This is what Ruby had been born to do. Genocide.

"The grimm were a distraction, at first. Keep the silver-eyed and their hunters away while we sealed ourselves off. While we hid. From the scourge that is humankind, and its silver-eyed warriors. Even then we wished only to survive, and understand. Never punish. But we made a mistake. I made a mistake.

"You see, the magic the man had stolen from our race was that of power, and scale, and control. We no longer had the ability to lessen or unmake the grimm. For that, we need silver eyes."

"What, exactly, do you want from Ruby?" demanded Weiss. "And exactly what happens when you get it?"

Salem gestured behind herself, and another chair rose from the rocky ground. This one was also stone, but grander, with a filigreed golden trim and jewels forming an arch across its tall back. "Ruby Rose is the only argent of humanity. If she gives her power to this throne, then the individual sitting in it will have connection and control over the grimm. It is not an easy task. I could never subject it to another. The process is painless for her, of course."

Ruby found her voice. "And you claim you'll use this to make peace."

"You can already see that I don't like death. I am attempting to resolve this peaceably. With your people there to urge the end of fighting and the acceptance of reason, Remnant could thrive together in a matter of days."

_Your people?_

Neo let go of Ruby's hand and retrieved her scroll. ᴅᴏᴇs sʜᴇ ᴍᴇᴀɴ ʙʟɪɢʜᴛᴇᴅ?

"You'll send out blighted, once you take my powers to heal them. Are you going to blight the rest of the humans, too, Salem?"

The fey shook her head. "Only as many as would be absolutely necessary. Any grimm alive would tax the throne. Once our people have peace, why would I want more strain?"

"I'd sooner destroy this city than let you enslave humanity. No blighted."

"I will need to speak to my council, but I understand that this means a great deal to you." Salem's gaze drifted across the three, lingering on Weiss. "I will give you accommodations among your people. We will speak again soon."

The three smaller chairs sunk back into the hill. Behind them, Ruby saw Winter heading up to retrieve them.

 _If she said she destroyed all of the beetles,_ Ruby wondered, _would I have to believe her?_

Salem, gazing idly up at the moon she'd projected, sat down on her throne.


	13. Always

_I never intended to be the tyrant of remnant. Or of Vale, even._

Ozpin sighed and took a sip of coffee. _Somehow, it took until now for me to slip up._

He stretched his feet up onto his desk. His all-new desk, in his all-new tower. He could've moved down into the Vale council hall, but appearances were important. He was still, after all, just the academy headmaster. On paper.

Desperate times.

The caffeine coursed down his throat and already he could feel it spread through his veins. The best invention of humanity, bar none. Life without it had barely been worth living.

A girl appeared in front of his desk. Taller than short, yellow hair, yellow and brown outfit exposing quite a bit of skin. Sweaty. Jennifer? No. Jennifer was dead. Erica? No, the lack of right arm was throwing him off. Yang.

Ozpin removed his feet from the table as casually as possible. "Yang. What a pleasant surprise." What had her semblance been? Not a good one, a useful one, or Ozpin would've remembered it. But she was on Ruby's team. Ruby's sister, even. Sister? They didn't look much alike. But Ozpin had never gotten the hang of faces.

That hadn't been a fey portal, either. Which removed one from the very short number of explanations for her appearance.

"Professor." She seemed unsure if she should bow or make some other expression of respect. She settled for wiping her brow. "We have to deliver a message to Tahki."

Ozpin nodded. There were only two explanations now. "And who is this message from?"

"Summer," Yang answered, stone-faced.

So she hadn't been sent _by_ Pilo, or her successor. Rather, she was the one taking the poor girl's place. "Very well." Ozpin stood up. His new chair was more comfortable than the last, but it didn't look nearly as fashionable. "Do I get to know what we're going to tell her?"

"You'll hear when I tell her." Yang had a familiar note in her voice. Well, they were all familiar notes. This particular familiar note said she was covering for her own insecurity.

Summer hadn't yet told her what she would say.

Ozpin looked around for his cane, but of course, that was gone off somewhere. Hadn't even been in the wreckage. A shame, but it wasn't his only resource. "What does Summer need of me?"

"Summer will find the maiden of winter. I might need your help to get her out of the ocean and convince her what needs to be done."

Ozpin shook his head. "Summer won't need any help convincing another maiden of her plans." Save Yang's help, of course. But Yang herself was simply the maiden's other half. Summer was by far the oddest season. The first made. The flashiest, yes, but also the one for ironing out mistakes. Errors.

Ozpin leaned over his desk and pressed the intercom. "Hold my calls." He didn't know if Glynda was listening on the other end, but from experience, she was the one that would yell at him about it later. Desperate times.

 _Such is life._ For the next fifty years at least.

"Take my hand," the girl ordered. Ozpin gripped the offered wrist, as she gripped his. "I'm still a little sloppy at this point. But if it's any consolation, I'm the best in the world. The kid with the semblance hasn't ever used it." Yang took a deep breath.

The _pop_ was much louder in first-person. Suddenly, the two were over the city of Vale. A second _pop_ and they were further to the north, over the commercial district. A third _pop_ and they'd moved west, to the residential peninsula.

They'd barely begun to fall before they appeared over the sea. _Pop, pop, pop._ Ozpin couldn't tell which direction they were moving any more. _Pop, pop, pop._ They couldn't be moving just in a straight line. _Pop, pop, pop._ They would've reached land by now. _Pop, pop, pop._ Summer was zeroing Yang in on where they needed to be.

"Here!" Choked out Yang. She nearly let the pair of them fall the fifty feet into the water. _Pop._ "Go!" She moved fifty feet back up, and wrenched her arm from Ozpin's grasp.

The entire thing was incredibly undignified.

Yang popped back into the air, and Ozpin dropped towards the water. So he stopped everything and slipped under the waves.

Ozpin had never realized the true scale of the leviathan. Certainly, Tahki had described it back on Vytal. But when he came face to eye with it, it was still intimidating. It must have been a mile long, head to flipper. He'd have to begin work immediately. If Summer had plans for Winter, the leviathan would get loose. Just 80 years back, that would've threatened the apocalypse. Nowadays, James might just have enough ordinance to put a stop to it.

Lucky that there hadn't been a second fey like Yasriel. Maidens weren't a simple system to set up, and it took the most powerful just to contain the threat. Or maybe the other fey saw what happened to her and didn't repeat the ritual, but that didn't explain the thousand years previous.

Next to it, Tahki was easy to miss. Ozpin didn't. He threw an arm around her stomach, tucked her sideways under his arms, and started swimming straight up.

Even now, Ozpin was impressed at Tahki's instant awareness; the winter maiden was conscious and focused at all times. She opened her eyes and stared at him before unfolding her body from his grasp and spreading out to kick her legs. She slipped a hand into his first, though. He must have explained his semblance to her at some point, or she guessed. With semblances, contact was usually a good guess.

She likely also guessed he wasn't grabbing her to chat about old times. Ozpin had left her to her work for this long. Why would he interrupt it now, short of the fate of the world?

They broke the surface. Yang was still thirty feet up. Tahki stilled the water in front of her, climbed on, and then lifted Ozpin. She'd grown adept using those powers, and good thing.

Ozpin let the world resume.

Suddenly, he was out of breath. Almost dry, yes, but out of breath. Ozpin was getting old. He sat down abruptly and felt that Tahki had shaped him a chair from air.

Not even as comfortable as his old one, and invisible chairs _were_ rather tacky. Still, Tahki had already seen him at his worst, and a Summer wouldn't care one way or the other, so appearances didn't matter much here. Nonetheless, old habits.

Yang fell almost to their level and popped a few feet sideways to land next to them. She'd learned her new semblance quickly. Hopefully it would treat her well, because she was never getting her old one back. Summer could give others any she'd had, but could only use their most recent acquisition. That had been unintentional.

"Your mission?" asked Tahki, once the three were settled.

"My sister is fighting the fair folk now." began Yang. "She's going to win." She paused, another look of uncertainty passing through her face. "Then something is supposed to happen... there." She pointed to the horizon.

"Where?" prompted Tahki.

"Uh..." Yang scrunched up her face. "On the moon? I think. I don't see it yet."

Ozpin nodded. Did he have enough breath to speak without shattering his mystique? "Fair magics keep it in stasis." He wanted to elaborate, but was forced to go back to breathing lest he gasp or do something even less dignified.

"I am to go there."

"Things will get bad if you don't," Yang answered. She probably didn't know how. As each soul joined, Summer had gotten more and more willful, elitist... damaging.

How was Ozpin to know? Nobody could have known. It wasn't anybody's fault.

Sometimes things just happened.

"There," Yang was telling Tahki, at least Ozpin hoped it was Tahki, pointing into the sky. "No... There." She swung her arm left. "There." She corrected a bit to her right. "Yeah. That one."

Tahki smiled. She took a step, stilling the air underneath her foot several inches from the ground. Then another, and another, and she was two feet in the air.

"Oz, you are recovered?"

Ozpin sprung to his feet and nodded stoically. "I am fine, Tahki."

"Then I am away." She took off, sprinting into the sky where Yang had pointed. She had faith. Faith that if she went that direction, she would arrive where she needed to be. Faith that Ozpin would do what he must with the leviathan.

Faith that Summer was saying the right thing. She'd barely ever been wrong, but that didn't mean she always told the truth. In Ozpin's experience, it didn't mean she _mostly_ told the truth.

"This water will flow once she gets further away," Ozpin pointed out, offering a hand to the girl by his side. She didn't seem to bear him ill will, Summer's or otherwise. "Shall we?"

All he'd ever done was the best he could. Ozpin smiled, thinking of all the ways Glynda would already be preparing to tell him that it wasn't enough.

_Pop._


	14. Don't Talk

"She's lying," Weiss declared.

"About what?" Ruby was staring out of the tiny cottage's empty window frame, the sun creeping up past her face as it set.

"Everything." Weiss continued to pace. "You don't create the race of grimm to run and hide. To start with, why would you need to make so many different varieties?"

"Maybe they... changed themselves," Ruby suggested. "Split apart somehow." So hopeful.

"Yeah, or maybe they were made by a liar."

Neo didn't know what to believe. She had enough experience with humanity to recognize its potential for evil. But grimm shaped the world in uncomfortable ways. They didn't seem like the necessity begotten from altruism that Salem had implied.

In the end, Neo didn't care. Why should it matter where the grimm came from? Why should it matter what happened a billion years ago? The goal was stopping the beetles. The goal was stopping the grimm. The goal was Ruby Rose.

The sun dipped below the horizon.

"Will they kill us when we go to sleep?" asked Weiss. "We can't exactly lock the door." Neo wasn't sure why there was no glass in the city, but evidently the fair folk weren't ones for privacy. The door had no lock, and the window didn't even have blinds.

"They let us into the city. They have to know how much damage I could do." Ruby got up from her chair by the window and eyed the room's stiff cot. "I don't think they want a fight." So trusting.

"Or _maybe_ , they brought you here so you'd go to sleep thinking that." Weiss pointed at her partner. "Maybe you don't want to show Salem what you can do yet, but I say we keep a watch."

"What do you think they'll give me?" asked Ruby. "For my powers." So kind.

"Nothing, because you're not giving up humanity's only weapon," Weiss insisted. "We'll do things our way." Neo turned her scroll back on. She had no reason to save the battery.

Neo snapped her fingers. Ruby looked, then pointed the glowing scroll out to Weiss. ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ғɪʀsᴛ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜ.

Weiss looked her up and down. "We'll talk more tomorrow," the woman declared. "Wake me in four and a half hours." She grabbed Ruby's hand and pulled her over to the cot.

"Weiss, maybe we should plan for when we—"

"No." Weiss placed a finger over Ruby's mouth. "Get into bed now, or you'll wake me when you do." She looked around the room. "At least I can trust Neo to keep things _quiet_."

Ruby rolled her eyes in the gloom and slipped with Weiss under the cot's sheet. The air was warm, and the sun setting didn't seem to start cooling anything. How the weather worked here was also something Neo was fine not learning.

It took twelve minutes for Ruby's breathing to even out like Weiss's. The door could make sound, so Neo jumped through the window and rolled. The gaps between buildings in this part of the city were just thin dirt paths, so she straightened before rolling into the next wall over.

Somebody was to her left. Neo turned. Winter, standing stock still against their hut's outer wall. The place was otherwise deserted.

Winter could be a problem. Schnee glyphs were powerful. Still, incomplete control could diminish her efficacy. Neo held a finger to her lips for quiet, then typed. ᴡʜʏ ᴀʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴇʀᴇ?

"I'm to see to your needs and requests," whispered the tall woman, bending down.

ᴀʀᴇ ᴀʟʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟɪɢʜᴛᴇᴅ ʜᴇʀᴇ? Asked Neo.

"Yes. The blighted sleep in this neighborhood. You've been placed in the center." So that any use of Ruby's eyes would spread out and kill the ones that had been blighted too long.

Neo nodded. That would be fine, then. ᴛᴇʟʟ ᴍᴇ ʜᴏᴡ ʙʟɪɢʜᴛɪɴɢ ᴡᴏʀᴋs.

Winter's eyebrows narrowed. "Last month, a small grim burrowed inside of my aura. It tells me what actions to perform and punishes me when I don't."

ʜᴏᴡ ᴅᴏᴇs ɪᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ?

"Each beetle has a mission. I don't think they're intelligent in the proper sense, they're much too young. They use the knowledge of their hosts to determine how to accomplish it." Winter's voice was rising in volume.

Neo gave her another silent shushing before typing again. sᴛᴀʏ ǫᴜɪᴇᴛ. ᴡʜᴀᴛ ɪs ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴍɪssɪᴏɴ?

"My mission can be changed through a fair folk's demands. My current mission is to be of service to Ruby Rose and her companions through the night, and report anything noteworthy." Winter's gaze drifted off towards the tall building in the distance.

Neo felt a spark of hope, and her heart began to beat faster. ʜᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ?

Winter's eyes widened. She was smart. She understood.

"I do so in person." She spoke slowly and deliberately. "The grimm have no way to communicate over distances."

Neo's heart felt like it might explode from her chest. She forced her hands not to shake as she typed.

ɪ ʀᴇǫᴜᴇsᴛ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴜʀɴ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ.

Winter took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. Black lines may have appeared on her face, but it was hard to tell in the gloom.

Winter turned around and faced down the street. "I love my baby sister," she whispered. Neo barely heard it over her own heartbeat.

"She'll grow strong," Neo assured her.

Neo ran her through. The first strike bounced off her aura, however much the blight forced her to retain. The second slid through her ribs and out her chest. As she toppled, Neo put a hand over the woman's mouth and lowered her body to the dirt.

Neo's heart calmed. She was committed now. Nothing left but to finish the job.

Ruby was hopeful. She was trusting. She was kind.

Ruby was foolish. Ruby was naive. But that was what made her Ruby Rose, and Neo couldn't harm it.

Neo would never follow Ruby into hell because Ruby would never have to go.

"I'm... still alive." Winter's skin was a mess of black lines, but still she whispered. She lifted her head and stared at Neo, pleading in her eyes.

Neo stabbed her twice through the neck and she was still. Then she stabbed the beetle climbing out of the hole in the woman's back.

Neo had paid attention as they were led to their building. She knew the layout of the surrounding buildings. Start with the most remote, in case the blighted weren't all asleep.

Neo felt a sting in her thigh.

_OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY_

She spun, digging her hand into the wound. Her hand slipped on her blood and came back empty. Winter's cloak was torn at her waist. A second beetle was crawling out. Neo had a bad angle on her wound with her hand, so she drew her umbrella and lunged for the beetle on Winter's corpse.

_OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY_

They'd had Winter carry grimm. For this exact situation. Neo was outplayed. She would have to cry out, get Ruby to heal her, let Weiss attempt to murder her, and abandon her plan.

_OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY_

The beetle didn't like that plan. It wanted her to turn from the house and walk to the big building. To report what she had done.

Neo didn't want to do either one. She stepped down the path, towards the remote cottages.

_OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY_

For that perfect innocent idealist.

_OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY_

For Ruby Rose.

_OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY_

The first cottage was dark and still. Neo wasn't confident she could jump through a window. She opened the door, and one of its two occupants sat up and opened his mouth. Neo's blade went out the back of his head, then through his partner's neck.

_OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY_

Neo fell to the floor and clutched her head. Her umbrella landed somewhere.

_OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY_

_That's two people Ruby will never have to kill._

_OBEY,_ Neo's mind demanded.

"No."

Squinting in the darkness—light seemed to make the pain worse—Neo found her umbrella.

She wouldn't be able to finish without it.


	15. Sounds of Remnant

_What's that sound?_

Oh well. No need to worry, Neo was...

Ruby bolted upright. It was night. The door was opening. Neo wasn't there. Why wasn't Neo there?

Ruby jumped to her feet. Next to her, Weiss dived for myrtenaster.

Something on the other side of the doorway croaked. Then they did it again. On second listen, it sounded almost like a hoarse voice choking out the word "No."

The door opened. Weiss ringed the bed in glyphs.

"Weiss," Ruby hissed.

Weiss ended the glyphs. Ruby ran to the door and engulfed Neo in a hug.

Her face was a mess of black lines. Blood was everywhere, thickest on her hands and sleeves, but also splattering her chest, oozing from a tear in her pants, and fusing shut one eye.

"Ruby... Do me a favor." Neo smiled. "No. Do me a favor." Under the rasping was a faint gurgle. Neo's delicate voice had broken.

"Neo, what happened?!" Ruby demanded. Pleaded. Wailed.

"Give it a blast, Ruby." Neo closed her eyes. "No. Big as you can."

"You're blighted." Ruby blinked. Black lines. Neo was in pain. What had happened? What had they done to her? "Right. Of course." Ruby opened a palm and began to concentrate. Focus. She had to _focus_.

"No." Neo shook her head, a sluggish motion that barely jostled it against Ruby's chest. "Big as you can... Please... No. Trust me."

Big? They were in the fair city. "Neo, the blighted..."

"I love you." Neo's limp body slipped from Ruby's arms.

Ruby stared at the body at her feet. The droplets of water falling to the dirt.

The silver.

* * *

Weiss blinked stars from her eyes. She was alive, and awake, even if the world wasn't quite in focus.

Slowly she resolved a small standing figure and a larger lying one. The horizontal one was black and red: Ruby. The one tucking her in was Neo, also largely red.

This was not how things were supposed to go. No matter how things were supposed to go, this wasn't it. Neo had left them alone, she'd been blighted, she'd... What had Ruby done?

Weiss shook her head to clear it, and Neo turned around and looked at her. She'd clearly recovered some aura, as she was looking with two open eyes, although her clothing looked worse than ever. Weiss was sitting in a chair, a bit crooked.

Neo brought out her scroll. Its screen was cracked. ᴄᴀɴ ʏᴏᴜ sᴛᴀɴᴅ?

Weiss discovered that she could.

"What happened?"

ʀᴜʙʏ's ᴀsʟᴇᴇᴘ. ɪ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ sʜᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ sᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ.

The sun's rays were visible on the horizon as Neo limped down the path, Weiss following in her wake. The city seemed deserted, which made sense, but it magnified the eeriness of the city tenfold. And there was a smell in the air. One Weiss eventually identified, despite an attempt to the contrary.

Blood.

The beetles would put the blighted to sleep, to keep them fresh for the morning. But when Ruby unleashed her power... There hadn't been nearly any blood when Raven died.

"Where is Winter?"

Neo stopped a few steps short of the main street and turned around, typing. ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟɪɢʜᴛᴇᴅ ᴀʀᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.

Weiss shook her head. "No, It takes years for extraction to be lethal. At _least_ a year. Winter was only blighted last month. On a mission." Doing her duty. "She was on a mission."

ɪ ᴋɪʟʟᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴇᴍ. ɪ ᴋɪʟʟᴇᴅ ʜᴇʀ.

A second later, Neo was on the ground, bleeding from her eyebrow. Weiss was standing, her fist aching. That seemed odd. Weiss wasn't one to punch people. It was a terribly inefficient form of combat. Her trainers would never let her hear the end of it.

Neo stood back up and faced Weiss, hands at her sides. Weiss placed a diagonal glyph through her legs and another through her neck, spinning the woman around. She hit the dirt with her shoulder, tearing her coat. It was a powerful blow, whoever did it.

Neo grabbed her scroll where it had fallen and stood back up, pocketing it.

"How could you?!" Weiss shouted, leaning down into the killer's face. Neo swallowed, gaze locked on Weiss's hands. Weiss could sympathize. She could only watch the pair, from her station behind her own eyes.

Neo unhooked the umbrella from her belt and let it drop to the ground.

_Winter._

Weiss watched Weiss Schnee draw myrtenaster and pull back for a thrust.

Neo turned her head and squeezed her eyes shut. A flake of dried blood fell from her face.

"Winter..."

How? How could she kill Winter? She was so kind, and beautiful, and fair, and moral, and intelligent, and supportive, and _perfect_...

Weiss fell back into herself before falling to her knees. Then she fell to all fours.

A cracked scroll slid to her from across the dirt. sʜᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴠᴇʀʏ ᴍᴜᴄʜ.

Of course she did, no matter how hard Weiss made it. Winter could devote herself to anything. It was that tenacity she'd tried to hard to teach.

The one that Weiss wasn't acting on now. Classify and contain. Control and overpower. Winter was Weiss's sister. Winter was blighted. The blighted were agents of the fair folk. _Classification complete._ She took the knowledge and stored it for future recall.

Weiss stood and wiped her eyes. "What did you want to show me?"

Neo studied Weiss's face for something. Once she found whatever she'd looked for, she turned and limped into the street. They were right next to the circular depression, with the tall building to the side and Salem's hill beyond.

It wasn't the morning sun giving the hint of light to the sky. It was the hill. On top of the hill, where Salem had made the throne. The throne was glowing, bright and steady. A whole hazy fog around it glowed silver.

ɪ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ᴡʜᴇɴ ʀᴜʙʏ's ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀ sᴘʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀᴄʀᴏss ᴛʜᴇ ᴄɪᴛʏ ɪᴛ ᴛᴏᴜᴄʜᴇᴅ ɪᴛ, Neo typed.

So. The fair folk were dead, at least the ones nearby. The blighted were dead. And Ruby may have lost her powers. It wasn't how Salem had implied things would happen, but then, Weiss had known she was a liar.

Which meant the end of Ruby's powers. And, fair folk or not, the end of their fight against the grimm.

Humanity would need a new weapon. It couldn't be Ruby. Perhaps it would be Weiss Schnee, former Beacon student, one-time Atlas Academy enrollee, Schnee Heiress. With an overtaxed team leader, a huntsman certification, and a father who never loved her.

Sister of Winter.

It was Winter's path Weiss should follow. Winter's teachings. Winter's mission.

Weiss walked past Neo to the base of the hill. The woman failed to keep up. _Sorry, Neo. Sorry, Ruby. This time, I'll lead._

About time Weiss did the right thing. Made the call. Took the responsibility.

Neo reached the first step, took it, and stumbled. "Don't follow," shouted Weiss, slowing. "It seems you'll be looking after Ruby a little while longer." She didn't have to wonder whether it would work. It was all she'd been working towards. Of _course_ she could take it.

Weiss reached the throne. The glow from here was almost unbearable. Squinting, she made her way to the seat and sat. Nothing happened. She placed her hands on the throne's arms. They snapped into place like a magnetic seal.

All of the light in the universe was sucked into Weiss's chest. She absorbed the silver fog, and felt herself toppling inwards. Weiss was compressed into a point, before exploding outwards into eternity.

Weiss _was_ grimm. Anger, hatred, hunger. She felt the emotions, the feelings, all around the world, in millions and millions of fragments, each its own complete sensation. Weiss Schnee was multitudes, and had only one purpose: The complete destruction of humanity.

Weiss gathered herself back into herself. She was beginning to understand scope. This task could prove too great for any one person. At least, if that person wasn't Weiss Schnee.

She gave herself another purpose: _Die._

Everywhere, she resisted. Grimm yelped and howled, refusing her command. Some scratched, or bit her. Weiss screamed. Their pain was their own, but there was a physical force in their resistance.

Weiss ended her command. She wasn't ready for the grimm. Not all of them. She focused again, this time on just one species. Easy to find. Most of them were clustered in just four places. The beetles.

She gave them a purpose: _Go to sleep._

Weiss felt drowsy. But in the rest of her mind, she was awake. She couldn't sleep. Not yet. She had to cure the blighted, because Ruby couldn't. She had to make certain there would be no more deaths like Winter's.

Neo reached the top of the hill just as the sun appeared over the horizon. "Mneo," Weiss mumbled. "S'enough. Go." She took a breath. Had to concentrate on using her individual body. Derision helped her focus. "You have your orders. The grimm are mine. Ruby. Go."

Neo nodded and started back down.

Maybe the beetles were sparse enough to control. Then she would go back to the rest of the grimm, and figure out how to deal with them too.


	16. Real Love

Neo limped down the hill and back onto the path. She'd left her umbrella there on the ground. Sloppy, but who would she fight here? Who would she fight that she could beat?

Still, it was a nice umbrella. She should call it Iris. It deserved the name. Iris Schnee, for its predecessor and its maker. It clicked back onto her belt.

Fourth row, fifth, sixth, and she reached the cottage. She'd have to get Ruby out somehow. No. She'd have to get Ruby food somehow. No, she'd...

Cinder Fall stood above Ruby's unconscious form. Neo froze. Cinder, maiden of autumn. Friend of the fair folk. Enemy of Argents. How would Neo get Ruby away?

Cinder didn't even look up. "Neopolitan. You may see it's in your best interests to come inside."

Neo's traitor legs walked her through the open door, so she popped open Iris into a frontal guard, glassed, and backed right back out. It was Neo's first time experiencing the maiden's powers, but nothing said she had to _stay_ inside. Save proximity to Ruby, which was just short of everything.

"...And freeze."

Neo tripped over her legs and fell back into the doorway, her glass falling to pieces. All she could see was Iris's canopy. She heard footsteps moving closer.

"I see now, Neo. How you got her to do it. It's a fine trick." Cinder chuckled, then knelt down and pushed Iris aside, Neo's frozen hands following it. "You're responsible for a lot of killing, little girl. A whole race, I believe." Her face hardened. "Some good people."

Then Cinder rocked herself back and sat down on the floor. Neo could still see her from the corner of her eyes. "I guess you win." She lay down, and Neo couldn't see her anymore. Neo's eyes began to dry out and burn. She heard Cinder sigh.

A minute or ten hours later, Cinder stood back up. "Get up."

Neo tried to get up. She tried to do anything. All she was able to do was have painful eyes. Oh, her position was getting uncomfortable, but that didn't even count as an action compared to her eyes. Maybe if worry counted.

Cinder groaned. "Neopolitan, look, cancel my orders."

Neo slammed her eyes shut and dropped Iris to rub them.

"Get up. I'm not ordering you, just telling you." Neo groped for Iris with her left hand before rising to her feet. She could open her eyes now, if she had to fight, but it really wouldn't make a difference. She was Cinder's. _Ruby_ was Cinder's.

"The fair magics will start to fail. We should leave for remnant before the tunnel disconnects, unless you enjoy starvation. From what Roman told me, it would be rather ironic."

What was Cinder playing at?

"What?" Maybe Cinder saw Neo's expression. "You won. The play is done. It's time for the actors to remove their costumes and collect their pay. Did you expect me to throw a tantrum?"

Neo stowed Iris, forced one eye open, and saw Cinder throwing Ruby across her shoulder. Then she walked past Neo and out the door. Where was she... She just said. The tunnel.

"Don't worry, Neo. I'll get my revenge in time, but it won't be on you for finishing things. Neither you nor your girl are of consequence. Both of us know you won't be interfering with me again." Cinder smiled and walked away, carrying Ruby like a feather. Neo stumbled forward to follow.

What would happen to Weiss? Would she need to eat? Would she need a friend?

 _Well, I_ do _need to eat._ Neo wouldn't be able to stay in any case. If the tunnel was closing, that meant Weiss had better just be fine on her own. She made her choice, and it was the right one for somebody to make.

Neo also had to see Ruby to safety. Cinder was acting very strangely. Neo wasn't one for throwing away her life, but she'd taken a longshot or two in her time. Not for the argent or the hope of mankind, but for Ruby... What would Neo risk?

If she would follow Ruby into hell, she could probably walk behind Cinder for a bit, too. Except that Ruby would never enter hell. She couldn't. Not even following her _own_ lover.

Cinder led her to the tunnel, and up they walked into remnant. It was midday when they emerged. The bullhead was still parked in the village square, where Cinder unceremoniously dropped Ruby to the ground. Neo limped faster to catch up.

"A lot of things could happen now." Cinder didn't even bother looking at Neo. "Some I tried very hard to prevent. Some you won't like at all. Enjoy your love." She jumped into the air, limbs igniting, and shot away into the sky.

* * *

 

Something pecked Ruby's cheek.

"Ack!" Ruby tried to swat it away, but a fluttering of wings and wind saw her slap her own face. She opened her eyes. Why was everything so sluggish today?

Ruby was sitting on pavement, her back propped up against a brick building. She was facing the vinewall, from inside of it judging by the curvature. A crow was perched on an old street lamp just ahead, watching her. It was a warm day.

In her lap, a scroll with a cracked screen displayed the word ʜᴇʏ, ʏᴏᴜ.

"Hello?" asked Ruby, her head still muggy.

The scroll cleared its screen, and new words appeared one at a time. ɪ'ᴍ sᴏʀʀʏ ғᴏʀ ᴍᴀᴋɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅɪᴅ.

 _What I did?_ Who was she talking to? Where was she? And what did she...

Everything came back. She'd gone to the fair city, ready to end their attacks once and for all. She'd... They'd spoken with fairies, and Neo had... What happened? She wasn't supposed to use her powers, not when the blighted were...

"What did I do?" Ruby asked the scroll.

The scroll again changed its message. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ғɪʟᴇs ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ sᴄʀᴏʟʟ. ɪ ʟᴇғᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀ sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴅɪᴅɴ'ᴛ ᴋɪʟʟ ᴀɴʏ ʙʟɪɢʜᴛᴇᴅ.

Ruby stood up. Her muscles protested their use. "...Neo?"

ɪ'ᴍ ʟᴇᴀᴠɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ.

Ruby read the scroll over twice before sitting back down. " _What?"_

ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ sᴛɪʟʟ ᴀ ɢɪʀʟ, ʀᴜʙʏ ʀᴏsᴇ.

Ruby frowned. Was this a joke? She'd stopped getting _that_ kind of reaction before she became the world's only superhero and saved civilizations from extinction. "Neo? I love you, Neo. That's you, right?"

The screen went black before switching to a video feed. It showed Neo at the controls of a bullhead, shot from the built-in camera above windshield looking back at the consoles. She was looking down at the console, typing words that superimposed themselves onto the screen.

ɪ ᴡᴀs ғᴏʀᴄᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ɢʀᴏᴡ ᴜᴘ ᴇʟᴇᴠᴇɴ ʏᴇᴀʀs ᴀɢᴏ. ɪ'ᴍ ɴɪɴᴇᴛᴇᴇɴ. ɪ sᴋɪᴘᴘᴇᴅ sᴏ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ᴏғ ʟɪғᴇ, ʟɪᴋᴇ ʟᴇᴀʀɴɪɴɢ ʜᴏᴡ ᴛᴏ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ᴄᴀʀᴇ. She looked up at the camera, mournful, before looking back down and continuing. ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ᴀ ᴄʜɪʟᴅ. ᴡᴇ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ'ʟʟ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴡʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ᴅᴏɴᴇ ɢʀᴏᴡɪɴɢ.

Neo was looking at a small screen on her console. Ruby could just barely make out herself, as seen from the front-facing camera of the scroll in her hands. "Neo, stop kidding around. We're _happy_."

ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ᴋɪʟʟɪɴɢ ғᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ. Neo looked up at the camera, as if daring Ruby to disagree.

"But you don't kill. That's..." _You didn't kill any blighted._ "I love you, Neo." Was it true? Ruby and Neo were happy together. Things were working. Everything was working.

ᴀʟʟ ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ᴅᴏ ɪs ᴏʙᴇʏ ᴀɴᴅ ᴋɪʟʟ. ɪ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ʟᴇᴀʀɴ ʜᴏᴡ ʜᴜᴍᴀɴs ᴡᴏʀᴋ ʙᴇғᴏʀᴇ ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ʙᴇ ᴀɴʏʙᴏᴅʏ's ᴘᴀʀᴛɴᴇʀ. Neo threw a few switches and pulled back on a throttle lever. A quiet rumbling came out of the scroll's speakers, and the video feed fuzzed.

She couldn't leave. Neo had to be with her. Neo was the secret, the secret that gave Ruby power that made her special. No, forget the power. Neo made Ruby special. "Wait. Neo."

Neo looked back up at the camera. This time, Ruby couldn't quite make out her expression.

"Come back to me?"

After turning a few more dials, Neo got back to typing.

ɪ'ᴍ sᴏʀʀʏ ᴛʜɪs ɪs ʜᴏᴡ ᴛʜɪɴɢs ᴇɴᴅ ᴜᴘ. ɪғ ɪ ʟᴇᴀʀɴ ʜᴏᴡ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ʜᴜᴍᴀɴ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ, ᴡᴇ ᴄᴀɴ sᴇᴇ ɪғ ᴀᴅᴜʟᴛ ʀᴜʙʏ sᴛɪʟʟ ᴡᴀɴᴛs ᴍᴇ.

"Of course," Ruby answered. "Of course, Neo. I love you."

Neo stood up. The image was degrading second by second, but it was clear she was staring at the camera and taking a breath.

"Ruby, I'll always—"

ɴᴏ sɪɢɴᴀʟ

 

ᴇɴᴅ


	17. Epilogue 1

Gabi Altan stepped up next to a very tall man and dropped to parade rest. To her right, another much taller man did the same. Perhaps Gabi was overshadowed, but she wanted to stand out. Make an impression. There was a reason she'd applied in Vale.

"There's an idea I heard a lot growing up." Lieutenant Arc paced up the line, surveying each recruit in turn. "The idea is that when it comes to defending humanity, huntsmen do the dangerous work, and soldiers pick up the slack. They form the second line." Lieutenant Arc reached Gabi, made eye contact, and continued without breaking stride. "I sincerely hope none of you enlisted hoping for this to be easy."

"Perhaps some of you thought the opposite. Now that the huntsmen academies are all closed, the military is the front line against the grimm." The lieutenant reached the end of the line and turned back to address them. "It's worse than you know."

"A single huntsman could take on a king taijitu or clean out a pack of beowolves, but to do it they needed tools. Tools that they came to rely on."

"Aura and semblance."

Gabi twitched. Her uncle had unlocked her aura on her eleventh birthday. She'd had almost an entire year before losing it. Every night as she fell asleep, she could still feel her body ache.

Not like Jaune Arc. They say he was the only man ever to graduate from a huntsman academy with no aura at all.

"You cannot face these threats alone. Teamwork is your weapon." Gabi heard he fought on a team with the red reaper, the green goddess, and the invincible girl. That he'd led ten squads in the great rally. "And discipline is your shield." Lieutenant Arc still wore Crocea Mors on his hip. Gabi had watched a documentary on it last month. What she wouldn't give for _that_ shield.

Lieutenant Arc started to make his way back past the line. This time, he was examining each recruit more closely. "Tuck that in. Get this refitted. Hands behind your back. Wash those."

Lieutenant Arc reached Gabi, and her heart skipped a beat. The man stopped to look her up and down.

And then moved on, critiquing the rest of the line in turn.

Finally, he reached the end. "Grimm numbers are at a historic low. My job is to make sure everybody in this room lives to see their extinction. If I've given you a task, please report to Deputy Lieutenant Nikos for the locations of the laundry and other aux." A blonde woman to his right raised a spear in her hand and stepped forward. "If I gave you a clean bill, please report to _this_ Deputy Lieutenant Nikos for room assignment." A black-haired man to Lieutenant Arc's left raised his hand and stepped off to the side.

"Break."


	18. Epilogue 2

The doorbell was the first warning.

The man was nervous. He had a right to be, of course. Even when they permitted visitors, the perimeter guards weren't exactly kind about it.

Blake was as happy as she dared. She'd skimmed so little off of his mind's surface that she didn't even know his name. Better and better. She almost wanted to go out in public, were it not for... everything else.

She reached the door and opened it. "You have something for me?"

"Are you Yang Xiao Long?" the man asked. He was older, balding, wearing a green uniform. The small business owner type Blake got used to seeing around Vale. He held a clipboard.

"I'll take the delivery," Blake answered. Perhaps he hadn't heard of her leaf ear.

The man read the paper on his clipboard. "It's addressed to Yang Xiao Long. Signature on delivery."

"I'll take it, old man." Blake sometimes got testy when she was holding back Spring. A bad habit. Hard to break.

"I'll need Ms. Xiao Long's signature," the man insisted, and he meant it. Whoops.

Blake sighed, shutting the man's mind away once more, and snatched the clipboard from his hands before turning and heading inside. Past the kitchen, through the pantry, and down the stairs to the rec room. The room was dark.

"Hey, Boo," Blake called out. Yang liked the basement floor these days.

"Hey, Blake!" The lights came on, and there was Yang, by the far door. "I was meditating." Yang smiled and ran over to Blake, vaulting the couch, and grabbed her into a rough hug.

"Hey, Yang," Blake choked. Yang chose that moment to remember she had lips, and kissed her.

It took a few seconds before Blake broke the kiss. It did feel good. It felt exultant. But there was an uncomfortableness to it, one that seemed to weigh more on Blake's mind each day.

"You gotta sign something." Blake grabbed a pen off the coffee table and handed it to Yang, along with the clipboard.

Yang took the objects and stared blankly.

"It means write your name," Blake clarified.

" _Duh,_ " Yang answered, drawing squiggles on the paper. It might have actually been her signature; Blake couldn't tell. "What's it for?"

Blake gave Yang a patient smile. "You have to sign so the delivery-man knows the letter got to the right person." Blake felt a mind approach from above. She whipped into action.

The man screamed as the vines broke through the walls and engulfed him. Once she was sure his limbs were still, Blake extended the vines down the stairs. Maiden's powers weren't _all_ downside. Just ninety nine percent.

When the man's cocoon reached the basement, Blake uncovered his face from the tangled mass. "You don't have permission to enter our home."

"I am sorry, green goddess. Please forgive me. I must speak to her."

Blake braced herself and gave the man a read. No real ill will, beyond the transparent deceit. A son. Illness. Panic. Desperation. Some amount of curiosity. And on the surface, plenty of fear.

"She's sick," Blake told him.

"Who is he?" asked Yang, reaching out and running a finger down his cheek. "He's empty."

"Yes, Yang." Blake placed her hands on Yang's shoulders and urged her back. "No semblance. Pretty common these days. He was just leaving."

"I need one," the man croaked as the vines began to pull him back up the stairs.

"Blake, let me," asked Yang.

Blake couldn't refuse her. The man stopped halfway up the flight. "His son is sick," Blake told Yang, retracting the vines back through the flip-out holes in the walls. He landed on a step and steadied himself.

"Well, that's no problem, then." Yang smiled and bounded up the steps, laying a hand on his. Blake felt something change in the man's mind. "You'll be fine. You'll all be fine." She sounded so much like her old self when she said things like that. Carefree. Happy. Should she burn bright?

" _Now_ leave," Blake demanded. The man made it up the stairs before Blake plucked the clipboard from Yang's hands—the pen was missing in action—and ran up after him.

She met him by the kitchen. "This is for you," she told him. "What was she signing for?"

"Oh! Yes. Look underneath." Blake flipped up the paper and found a thick cardstock envelope on the board. She removed it and held the rest out for him.

When he placed his hands on the board, Blake held firm. "Two things and you can go."

His gaze flickered up to her eyes before moving back down to the board in submission. "Yes, green goddess."

"First. That semblance will hurt. Touch the boy and you will receive the pain of his recovery. You'll be bedridden for a week." It was still the best of its kind that Yang had been able to find, in the six months after the great fall she'd had to look. Yang had planned on sharing gifts with the world, before the side effects cropped up. Maybe even after. She was so selfless. "By the time you recover, the semblance will be gone." That one wasn't Yang's fault. The human body could no longer sustain magic. Which, Blake supposed, meant that it was never the one sustaining it at all.

"All right." The man yanked on the board.

"That was the first thing. Second, if you send anybody else here, I'll know that you did it. And I will kill them. And if you tell anybody else about us, for any reason at all, I'll kill _you_. Nobody can stop me. Do you understand?"

He understood. "I understand." His eyes were wide. That was good. It meant she most likely wouldn't have to follow through.

Blake let him leave and walked back to the basement steps. "Hey, Boo."

"Hey, Blake!" Yang ran up the steps and hugged her.

"You got a letter," Blake said. Apparently that reminded Yang that Blake had lips, because she kissed her.

Blake broke the kiss. "Here you go." She wandered back down, having spied the pen on the carpet near the stairs.

"Blake?" asked Yang, unsure.

"Yes?" Blake turned around on the steps.

Yang held the letter out, a tremor shaking her hand. "Can you... read it to me?"

"Of course." Blake smiled and accepted the envelope. Inside was a photograph and a paper with some writing. Grabbing the pen along the way, Blake sat on the couch. "Want to join me?"

Yang sat next to her, so Blake began. "Dear Yang. I'm getting along quite well with Crysta. I think you'd like her. She's a bit explosive. She designs clothes for a living, but she humors an out-of-touch old fart like me. She could probably sneak you some new threads if you let her visit. But between you and me, I'd be fine if you let me visit alone, too. Tai."

Yang stared at Blake, confusion on her face.

She pulled the photograph from the envelope. A family photograph of Taiyang, Summer, little Yang, and and even littler Ruby. "Your father." Blake pointed.

" _Duh_ ," Yang answered, tilting sideways until she lay down across the couch. "Get down here."

Blake sighed and lay down with her. The couch wasn't wide enough for the pair, and Blake had to hug Yang to avoid rolling off. Maybe that was Yang's plan.

"I don't want them to see me like this," Yang whispered.

 _I know._ It was a blessing, truly a blessing, to have somebody not open up like a book. Blake would give anything for maidens to exit the world like everything else, but as long as they were there, at least she had someone she couldn't analyze, catalog, and dismiss.

_She loves me._

"I love you, Blake." Yang brushed away the hair falling around Blake's face and kissed her again.


	19. Epilogue 3

The beowolf looked up at the sky. It ate, but what it ate didn't matter. It had no special love for meat, or for plants. The sun was not the source of a beowolf's survival.

That's why it wasn't _ironic_ that the sky tried to kill it. The wolf buckled under the assault, whimpering, its legs losing strength. Its breathing slowed.

Weiss lost her grip on the breeding pools, and around the world, grimm spawned. She cursed, although probably not physically, and abandoned her assassination attempt. It was too much effort, at least while deactivating every breeding pool and suppressing every beetle. But she could do it. At least so long as she stopped making mistakes.

Weiss moved back to Port's latest boarbatusk, but he'd left the cage out of range of the radio. She hunted around for more grimm in cities.

Nobody ever said that being the guardian of humanity would be so blasted _boring_! Discipline, Weiss could manage. Keeping the breeding pools stagnant was equivalent to tensing her muscles all day anyway. But she didn't have the power to do more. Humans had found only two breeding pools in the past year. She'd let grimm leak from them, so the humans would figure them out, but only one of the two had even been destroyed, and the genius that figured it out evidently hadn't publicized the hundred and eleven to go.

Maybe when there were fewer beetles, Weiss would have more control. Control a grimm, lead humans to the pools. Make them see...

Something touched Weiss in the body.

 _What on... Well, I guess, the moon. What on the moon?!_ Weiss forced herself back. It wasn't a pleasant trip, even before Weiss started dying.

Yes, there she was. Sitting down on a rather uncomfortable stone chair, body screaming for the oxygen it hadn't received in hundreds of days. She didn't need food, or _much_ air, but her body had apparently started to shut down. Everything hurt. Her legs tingled below the knee. Weiss frowned.

In front of her eyes was a woman.

She was tall, pale, with white hair hanging straight down in the vacuum. She wore a kimono. She moved her mouth, but no sound came out.

"There's no air, you dunce," Weiss mouthed back.

The woman blinked, then nodded. How was _she_ here on the moon? How did she not notice her inability to breathe? Why was her skin...

Weiss dredged up a distant memory. Yang, an airship, and a fantastical tale about ice and water. A polite, archaic woman of eternity.

The woman laid a hand on Weiss's own, resting on the throne's arm. A voice spoke in Weiss's head. It was soft, and unexpectedly warm.

"My name is Tahki. I am sorry that you have taken this burden. I cannot bear it for you."

 _I made a choice,_ Weiss thought back. Did that work? Was this a one-way process? So many questions. _I'll do my duty._ See if she didn't.

"I have reassembled the moon and erased the faery's damage." Reasse... Weiss hadn't spent any time before looking out of her eyes, and the senses she felt of the grimm were abstract and conceptual unless she forced order through them. Weiss looked past Takhi, and saw no fragments floating in the sky. "With the threat of the moon's destruction averted, you are humanity's primary safeguard. You will need help."

Weiss was proud, not stupid. Also irritated, stressed out, overcommitted, and actively dying. But still not stupid. If somebody capable of rearranging celestial bodies wanted to give her a hand, she wouldn't refuse. _What help?_

Tahki smiled, her face kind, and then looked into Weiss's eyes.

Her face grew dark.

It began at her eyes and spiderwebbed outward, like cracked porcelain. Then her skin started flaking off, then what was below skin, then what was below that. There was no wind. It all fell straight down. Weiss caught sight of her skull as the hair pulled free, then it moved down her body, too fast, until her bones and kimono fell into a heap on top of her ashes.

Weiss remembered how to widen her eyes just in time to be horrified.

Then she felt something else inside of her. A stillness. It wasn't a new idea, merely a realization of past attempts. Things began to come together. And everything that didn't was just fine being where it was.

_Tahki died, and in dying gave me the strength of winter. The strength to devote myself to my task. The selflessness of peace. She gave it freely, because she understood my need._

Weiss stilled her body's pain.

Two hundred and eleven pools. At one per year, she'd be home in no time.


	20. Epilogue 4

Ruby looked up from her book when she heard the knocking. Qrow was still in the workshop, practicing his strikes in the corner. She passed through to the front hall and, for a moment, allowed herself to hope.

Behind the door was a young man, one year Ruby's junior. He wore green overalls and an orange headband to wrangle his mussy blonde hair. "Sorry to call so early, Miss Rose."

"Don't worry, Julian!" Ruby smiled. "Finished last week. One thirty-inch blade, three wide, six degrees curved, inside sharpened. Got it down to three and a quarter pounds." She beckoned him inside.

Ruby spoke as she walked. "Anyway, on thursday I got to thinking, and I made a few adjustments. Kept the frame strong, strong enough at least." A body without aura would snap before one of Ruby's products. "And the changes got the weight three ounces lower, which is impressive when you see what I did." She led Julian into the workshop.

"Shoo! Shoo!" Julian shouted, swiping his hands at Qrow, who dodged in a flurry of feathers and flew past him out of the door.

"Please don't do that." Ruby waited for Julian's attention. "Anyway, here it is. See how it feels." She'd painted the hilt green with orange accents.

Ruby stood back while Julian gave it a few practice swings. "Well-balanced, Miss Rose."

"All right." She grinned. "Now, squeeze the very top of the grip and touch the pommel." This was her favorite part.

"Aah!" The blade split in two, revealing a small barrel, while a trigger flipped out from the handle.

"It's not loaded. And, and no extra charge! Don't worry." Ruby didn't want him to worry. Sometimes customers worried that she did it because she was greedy.

She did it because Julian had been her only customer the entire month.

"It's..." Julian made eye contact, then looked back down at the sword. "It's something, all right." He pressed the trigger back into the handle, and the blade sealed back up.

Ruby maintained her smile, barely. Well, fine then. It wasn't like he _had_ to use the gun. "If... If that will be all, you'll make the transfer?"

Julian nodded. "I will. Tonight. Thanks again." He knew the way out.

Ruby followed him as far as the living room and collapsed into a chair. Thankfully Qrow waited until the man was gone before hopping out of hiding onto his remote and pecking on the news. "Chirp if you hear grimm," Ruby told him, out of reflex. There had supposedly been three grimm sighted on Patch in the past three months, but Ruby had only been able to find and kill two. It's not just that people couldn't use custom weapons any more, they didn't need weapons at _all_.

It was still two grimm that could've dealt more damage than the destroyed house and single death that they'd accomplished between them. So Ruby couldn't move away. Not until the frequency went down, or more learned how to fight at range like she could. Dad couldn't fight at range at his best. Qrow couldn't do more than distract grimm, and the rest of the former Signal professors had left, most for Vale.

Ruby could barely afford food and birdseed. The weather was cooling, and she would need at least heat for the winter, not to mention supplies for grimm and training.

But people counted on her. Vale could have a market for specialty weapons, but it could also defend itself. Ruby sighed and closed her eyes.

Another knock. Who could that be? Ruby nestled herself deeper into her chair.

Qrow gave a caw. It probably meant, "be more conscientious towards your visitors." Ruby'd had a lot of practice with his range.

Ruby got up. She was still ahead of the bill collectors. Had Julian found a fault? Or could it be another customer? Or could it...

Ruby allowed herself to hope. Then she reached the door and threw it open.

 

 

 

"Hey, you."

"Hey, you."


	21. Epilogue 5

When Roman looked over at the guard, he felt like he could hear the beetle speak. Barely more than a whisper, it told him, _attack the authority._ It wasn't powerful any more. It wasn't insistent. And it certainly wasn't intelligent. But it still gave him its opinion on things.

Roman kicked open the bank door and dove towards the corner, hooking the guard with his cane and tripping him. Then he grabbed the pistol from the man's belt and fired into the ceiling. "Everybody quiet! This won't take long."

Sometimes the beetle was right, but it was coincidence, really.

"Tellers, hands up! Everyone else, on the ground! I'm not after any of your money. Just the bank's." Roman didn't foresee resistance. Guards and toughs were all people used to aura. With a gun to their heads, they all got the sweats. Life was so deliciously fragile these days.

Roman approached the near end of the teller's desk and threw down a grocery bag. "Cash on hand and pass it down. We'll be done in no time, you'll get the day off, and the police will give you all mugs of hot chocolate or something." The man stuffed some loose lien into the bag and gave it to the next woman. Roman strode alongside the desk, keeping pace with the bag. "See how easy this is? No pain, no trouble." It reached the end in under a minute. The tellers behind him had undoubtedly hit some alarms. That was fine. The bag was comfortingly heavy. Not bad for a day's work.

Roman sauntered back to the door, then reached into the bag and tossed a generous handful of lien at the customers in the center of the room. Life was good sometimes, and not just for him! "Enjoy," he recommended, heading out the door.

His ride was waiting on the curb, so Roman opened the door and slipped in. "Hit it."

Nasrin Gulistan accelerated towards the freeway.

Roman leaned in for a kiss. Nasrin was a good driver, not like she'd crash. And she was just so irresistibly _cute_ in that pink top! It was like what she'd been wearing when they'd met, minus the modesty forced upon her by faculty dress codes.

But then, once Roman set his sights on somebody, it was unreasonable to expect them to slip away. His looks, his charm, his _incentives_... Tenure at Haven hadn't stood a chance. He'd been doing this since _before_ he was able to touch people.

"Good haul?" Nasrin asked.

"Few thousand." Roman grinned. "Tonight will be fun."

The entire world could upend itself around him, but Roman would always land feet-first. Yes, the future was bright indeed. Bright as ever.

ᴡᴏʀᴅs ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴇ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅɴ'ᴛ sᴀʏ - ᴇɴᴅ

* * *

Thanks to Catlover18 for editing Illumination and the epilogue. Those chapters just kept coming, didn't they? Tireless work, invaluable assistance.

Thanks to Unjax for scattered editing help, Karsus for some planning advice, and Fireavatar for beta reading several chapters.

Thanks to Roosterteeth for making the IP.

And finally, thanks for reading! I had fun making it, so hopefully the feeling is mutual.


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